


Stay with me? I want to see the stars

by CyanideOreos, TheLadySyk0



Series: The New Alternia [8]
Category: Homestuck, The new alternia series - Fandom
Genre: Character Study, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Intimacy, Gen, Grief, Love, Original Character(s), Pale, Pale Prostitution, Pale Romance | Moirallegiance, Post-Condescension, Sickness, bowling, pale brothel, pale relationships, troll society
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-21
Updated: 2019-04-27
Packaged: 2019-08-26 22:34:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 29,709
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16690192
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CyanideOreos/pseuds/CyanideOreos, https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheLadySyk0/pseuds/TheLadySyk0
Summary: Trolls are a hard-bred warrior species, and emotional intimacy is often hard-sought. With the bringing together of Earth and Alternia, and the differences between a human and a troll's different views on emotional intimacy a new unforeseen market occurs.Aridha's Kismesis gave him a ticket to Earth and paid his fee.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hey guys! This is what I have been working on instead of my nanorimo project. I hope you like!

Aridha Karani, was a brown blooded troll, about 12 and a half sweeps old, with broad shoulders, shaggy shoulder-length hair and tall curved horns.

He was also….. apparently a fucking pervert.

He knocked his head back against the steel wall of the small room his kismesis had booked him on the ship. Watching the stars whirl past the small window by the cot.

“Gods.” He lit a redherb cigarette and took a puff, his lips pulled into a slight grimace. “I can’t believe I’m fucking doing this.”  


 

It had been a month ago when his Kismesis had broken into his house. Aridha had been alerted by the sound of breaking glass and had just enough time to jump out of his blanket burrito and grab his axe from the mantle before she burst into the room, throwing a couple of daggers and pinning his wrists to the wall by his sleeves.

She stalked over to him, kicking his fallen axe out of his reach. Aridha had pulled his hand free from the wall and-

“Look.” His kismesis Grashik pushed something into his hand suddenly. “Take it. You haven’t been yourself lately.”

He looked down at his hands, glaring at what he could now see were a pair of tickets. He scoffed “Wow. Fucking thanks Grashik I have no idea why. “ He growled at her, his ears back. “You really think a trip to-” He squinted down at the ticket stub “-Earth will help that?”

“Oh my fucking god.” Grashik glared at him, her arms crossed testily, her eyes weighted by the dramatic eyeliner and concern for him. “I’m trying to help you, you big stupid fuck.”

“You haven’t been the same since....” She paused, her lips thinning. Both trolls refused to look at each other for a moment. Something emotional and impassible between them. Something unsaid hanging in the air around them.

Aridha’s heart hurt. He clenched his fists and looked away, not wanting to cry in front of his kismesis.

“Aridha I….” Her jade eyes looked almost shyly up at him from under the fringe of her bangs. “...I have a contact on Earth, Remado Oakmah…” She bit her lip and looked away. “He has uh…” She winced “....specialists there.”

Aridha gave her a disgusted look. “Are you fucking….are you fucking talking about…” He shook his head, his eyes widening, looking at Grashik like she just offered to eat a puppy in front of him. “Oh my fucking GOD Grashik! Are you can’t be serious!”

She slapped a hand to his chest. “You haven’t talked to anyone about it! You just fucking MOPE! And I-” Frustrated tears began to pool in her eyes. “-I can’t keep watching you tear yourself apart piece by piece and I can’t give you what you need!”

Aridha grimaced, holding up the tickets “But to go as far as to-”

“Yeah whatever be judgmental you prude. “ Grashik rolled her eyes. Despite calling him a prude she also looked a bit uncomfortable with what she had arranged, though she squared her shoulders and wrote it off as just one of those things that needed to be done. “I already paid your fee. Just go. Just go and fucking try to-” She took a deep breath, running her hand through her hair in frustration. “- _try_ to get your head on straight ok?”

Aridha stared down at the tickets in his hands.

Grashik fidgeted where she stood. “...think of it as a...vacation?”

Aridha sighed and tucked the tickets into one of his pockets. “Fucking whatever.” He gave Grashik a glare. “I’ll think about it ok?” He looked down at the glass on the carpet and sighed “Now get the fuck out of my house.”

Grashik sighed, stepping towards the broken window to leave. She turned to look over her shoulder, pinning him with a sad look. “Just because I’m your kismesis doesn’t mean I don’t care about you ok? It means that it’s my job to whip you into shape when you’re being stupid.” She looked down at the broken glass on the windowsill. “It’s not healthy to not talk about it…”

Aridha smiled sadly, his arms crossed in front of himself. He huffed. “Wow Grash. That’s pretty fucking pale of you, you quadrants hopping freak.” He added teasingly.

Grashik rolled her eyes, giving him a gentle punch to the jaw. “Next time I come to stab you I won’t be so nice about it, you big lug.”

She stepped up onto the sill of the broken window. “...and Aridha?”

Aridha rubbed at his eyes tiredly. “Yeah Grash?”

Grashik looked over a shoulder at him. “...I’m sorry about what happened.”

Aridha nodded, swallowing around a lump in his throat. “...thanks Grash…”

She gave him a sad smile and jumped out from the window and disappeared into the night.  


 

Aridha watched the space outside the window change, a small blue and green planet coming into focus. An electronic panel at the top of the cabin door flashed.

“Prepare for entry into planet atmosphere.” A calm electronic voice notified. “Secure your belongings.”

“Well…” Aridha huffed out a puff of dark reddish smoke, stabbing his cigarette into the bottle he had been using as an ashtray. “This is happening… isn’t it?”

He stuffed the few belongings he had that were strewn around the small room into his duffle bag. It was a military issue bag. He had been a wriggler when the old empress had been overthrown, but there were still bits and pieces from the old reign. There were horrible stories from older trolls, statues of her with the faces of the old empress chipped off, blood stains under the flooring tiles in old houses and military gear from the old reign was dirt cheap in every second hand shop.

He put the strap over his shoulder, his fingers tracing across the words embroidered there, something every new recruit in the old reign would read a thousand times a day. “Obey. A troll is built only for the glory of battle.” He had owned the bag so long that he could read it by touch.

He went into the hallway. The small passage between the lowblood cabins were already choked with passengers all shouldering past each other and towards the gates. Aridha waited in line for what seemed like hours, watching the higher castes file out of the ship first before he finally reached the exit gates.

The teal behind the desk took his transit papers and gave him a good look over. “You don’t seem like the type to be here for the anime convention…” He arched a brow. “So I’m curious… Are you here for business or…. Pleasure?”

Aridha grit his teeth, to keep from snapping at him. Teals in charge of paperwork can make your life hell if you make them mad. In Aridha’s experience teals, who are pushed around all day by the upper castes, sometimes take their frustrations out on the lower castes in petty paperwork related ways. Last time he swore at a teal he spent an entire year being misfiled and choked with bureaucratic red tape. “Just here to visit ok?”

“Mhmmm….” The teal held up his transit documentation, a shit-eating grin on their face. “Visiting one of Oakmah’s girls, huh?”

Aridha snatched the travel papers out of their hand, his shoulders hunched and his teeth gritted.

“Ask for Emma while you’re there…” The teal-blood teased, a couple of their teeth were chipped at odd angles when they grinned at him. “She’s my favorite.”

Aridha growled, their ears folded back against the teal’s breathy giggles as they walked past the desk as quickly as they could.

The planet outside the gate had a sky that was streaked with dull oranges and purples bleeding into a starry night sky. Earlier in the night then he usually would have woken up at. Green grass waved in the wind, breaking through the cracks in the tarmac. He pulled a fistfull of it and brought it too his face to inspect the odd green plant.

 

Suddenly he remembered laying on a hill outside of Korish’s hive. They were looking up at the stars and enjoying the breeze on their faces. Korish was braiding his hair, adding the little red pointed flowers that fell from the redfruit tree in their yard. Aridha had thrown a handful of purple grass at him and Korish had laughed and shaken it from his hair.

Korish flopped to the grass then, staring back at Aridha, a gentle smile on his face. “I wanna see the stars Aridha.”

He had grinned back then, settling down on the grass next to him and putting another redfruit blossom at the base of Korish’s curled horns. “I’ll take you anywhere you want to go.”

“Promise?” They whispered, round rust eyes staring back at him and kitten sharp teeth digging into his lower lip.

Aridha smiled, reaching out for his hand, rubbing his thumb against his knuckles before bringing it up to his lips for a kiss. “Promise.”

 

Aridha stared down at the fistful of grass in their hand. “Sorry Korish.” He whispered, opening his hand and letting the grass blow from his palm.

Aridha put his cigarette back to his lips, blowing out a pull of red smoke and stuffing his hands into his jacket pockets.  


 

It was a long bus ride until he got to the city where, according to his kismesis, Remado Oakmah lived. Some of of the human passengers stared at him, unused to trolls. Oddly enough one or two even waved at him. Aridha didn’t quite know what to do with that, or what would be rude or not, so he just ignored them. He spent the rest of the trip with his hood up, leaning against the window of the bus and watching the odd landscape roll by.

He finally came to the address that Grashik had given him. He looked down to the piece of paper in his hand and then back up to the house. It was a large house with a wrap-around porch, painted purple with white lacy trim. There was some odd lettering he didn’t recognize as English or Alternian on a plaque by the door. The windows were glowing a warm yellow and he could hear laughter from where he stood on the porch. A couple of packs of soda were chilling in the cool night on the deck table.

Aridha groaned, rubbing his forehead. “God am I really going to do this?”

He hissed “I can just….leave!” He reasoned with himself, throwing a hand in the air. “Tell Grashik I did it and it went fine!”

“I...I came this far though…” He put a hand to his mouth. “Why am I so nervous about this?” He grimaced. “I mean it’s their….job?” He rubbed at his eyes tiredly. “God it sounds even worse saying it out loud…”

Aridha had been walking back and forth on the porch, arguing with themselves when the door suddenly opened.

A tall troll was silhouetted in the warm light coming from inside the house. When Aridha’s eyes adjusted he could see that they were a purple blood with tall pointed horns and long hair braided to the small of their back and cinched with a gold band. They were wearing what looked like an purple silk undershirt, purple silk harem pants and a silk robe.

The pretty purple reached for the pack of soda. “Karina! Do you want creme soda, fanta or-”

The troll stopped, tucking a pack of fanta under a arm. “Oh…” The troll gave Aridha a once-over, slitted purple eyes taking in every detail. They tapped a gold tipped claw to their lip. “Alternian clothes, military issue bag…” They grimaced and waved their hand vaguely. “...those awful bags under your eyes…” They winked and pointed a finger gun at him. “You must be Aridha…”

Aridha sighed, looking back at the door, their last chance to escape…

Aridha sighed, giving up on running. “Yeah that’s me.”

“I’m Remado Oakmah.” The other troll purred, closing their eyes and putting a hand to their chest. Like this Aridha could see that he was wearing gold eyeliner. They batted their eyelashes at him. “I take it that this is your first time?”

Aridha rubbed the back of their neck. “Uh… yes…”

Remado leaned against the doorway. “Alright then, there’s some ground rules. These are pale girls alright? Nothing red, nothing black, no auspice work without an appointment. Take her lead and she’ll treat you right. If there’s ever a time where you creep her out, I will come and pick her up and you won’t get a fucking refund-”

Remado slunk up to Aridha. “Oh and honey, if I find a single goddamn bruise?” Remado looked down at him, his voice low and breathy. “I’ll bite your fucking bulge off.” He whispered huskily licking a long tongue up Aridha’s nose, incidentally showing the troll his long sharp teeth.

“Anyways!” Remado leaned back, leaving a very, scared, uncomfortable and slightly damp Aridha. “Let’s go in ok?”

Aridha was still shaking from the encounter, taking a moment to take a final puff of his redherb cigarette, his hands shaking. He snuffed out the cigarette and followed the purple into the unknown.

The house was warm and cheerful, well furnished with about twenty different pairs of shoes at the door. He could hear laughter and the noises of a television just down the hall. Looking down there was a rug underneath his feet that read “Welcome”. Aridha looked down at it with confusion.

“Oh honey you’re lucky.” Remado tittered, one arm still around the pack of soda, his hip cocked. “It’s girl’s night.”

Aridha wasn’t sure about the sound of that. “A what night?”

Remado turned back to him, his hand on a door at the end of the hall. “You’ll see.” He sing-songed.

Remado pushed the door open and-

Ten or so human women were lounging about in a plushly furnished living room, blankets and pillows littering the floor. They were all wearing pajamas, filing and painting each other’s nails, passing bowls of junkfood amongst themselves and the girl in the corner was-

Oh my god she was asleep. Asleep in front of ten other people!

Aridha’s face turned entirely brown.

One of the girls clapped when they saw Remado return. “Yay! He returns! We missed you!”

There was a small chorus of equally excited “Yays!” and “I missed yous” and “Remado did you bring my sodas” from the group of small and soft looking humans.

Remado chuckled at the first girl. “Babe, I was gone for like, ten seconds.”

She pouted up at him, with her big brown doe eyes, thick lips pulled down into a frown. “Ten seconds too many!”

He leaned down to kiss her on the forehead. “My apologies Rita.” He batted his eyelashes and put a hand to his chest. “I’ll never leave you alone again.”

Rita grinned up at him. “I’ll hold you to that.” She giggled, pointing a finger to his chest and leaning in with a grin, walking her fingers up his chest. “I’m gonna keep you in _alllll_ day tomorrow cuddling, eating junk food, and watching the entire Harry Potter series.” She kissed the bridge of his nose.

“I’d love that.” Remado purred back, brushing back some of her hair.

Aridha’s brown blush was now spreading to his ears and neck. God they were just so...just so…

Affectionate!

So completely unabashedly affectionate. In front of other people too!

Remado hugged her one last time before straightening up. “Alright girls, this is Aridha, he’s come a long way from Alternia.”

“Hi!” One girl squeaked from where she was sitting on the couch, a blanket wrapped around her shoulders and a cute green-eyed freckled face peeking out. “I’m Katie! I like your bag! It’s very military chic”

Aridha clutched at his bag. “It’s a what?”

“I like your hair!” another girl complimented from where she was lounging languidly across the floor, looking upside-down at him and taking a handful of m&ms from the communal bowl. “Very glam rock. I never did give up on the shaggy mullet making a come back”

He put his hand to his hair. His hair was for all he could tell was just kinda….around his face? “It’s a WHAT?”

“Did you see a teal blood at the airport?” One chubby and extremely huggable-looking girl with almond eyes who was wearing a particularly fuzzy sweater raised a hand. “Did they remember to bring their lunch? They always forget.”

Aridha stuttered. Oh no that one was probably Emma. “I- I Uh-”

A girl with curly red hair looked up at him hopefully. “Can I do your nails?”

He clutched his hands. “I-”

Remado rolled his eyes. “Be easy on him girls he’s new to Earth brand affection.” He put a finger to his lips. “Maybe everyone at once isn’t the way to go for a first timer-”

Aridha squeaked, his ears flattening back. “Everyone at ONCE? You DO that?”

Remado gave him a flat look, pointing to the epicenter of the mass of blankets and cuddly-looking girls on the floor. “As soon as you’re gone, I take my rightful place at the center of the cuddle puddle.”

Aridha stared at him in shock.

“Remado!” The red-headed girl whined. “Can I re-do your nails?”

Remado scoffed, but smiled kindly down at her. He stretched out a hand, purple and gold-tipped nails glinting in the light. “But Jenny you did them so well last time!”

Jenny waved a little piece of plastic. “~I got dragon stencils~!” she sing-songed.

Remado grinned. “Oooo! You’re on!” He popped up a shoulder coquettishly. “But I get to braid your hair.”

She pumped her fists. “Yay! Do a fishtail!”

“Remado you promised to braid my hair!” A girl on the other side of the couch whined.

“And mine!”

“And mine!”

Remado tittered. “Everyone’s hair is getting braided!”

The girl wrapped up in the blanket looked up at him shyly. “Will you hug me during the scary part of the movie?”

He leaned down and hugged her “Of course Katie!”

Aridha couldn’t look anymore, sweat beading at his forehead. Good god this guy lives in a never ending pale harem. How the hell does anyone get so soft and vulnerable with so many people?

Remado gave him a look, taking stock of his obvious discomfort. “Hm...Where’s Kelsie?” He looked over at the girls lounging around on the furniture and floors. “She would be a good first time.”

One of the girls getting her nails done pointed at the girl sleeping in front of the television.

Aridha’s heart jumped to his throat.

Remado stepped carefully around the sleepy humans, careful not to upend any candy bowls or sodas until he got to the sleeping girl.

“Kelsie….” He whispered, shaking her gently “Wake up sweetpea.”

Kelsie squeaked, stretching out her arms and legs to the side. She blinked sleepily up at Remado. “Huh?” Her voice was slightly scratchy from sleep. “What is it Remmy?”

Remado smiled down at her. “I have a job if you’re up for it. He’s new though, so go easy on him.”

She sat up from her nest of pillows and blankets. She yawned, letting the blanket fall gently from her shoulders. She was wearing a soft-looking cream silk nightgown with a fuzzy sweater over it. Her curly blonde hair was smooshed over to one side where she had been sleeping on it. The bridge of her nose was dusted with freckles and she had large sleepy brown eyes.

“Aww…” She smiled and blinked sleepily at Aridha. “He’s blushing, that’s cute.”

Aridha squeaked, his blush worsening.

Her smile widened and he could see a large adorable gap between her front teeth. She bit her lip and fixed him with a serious look. “Have you ever gone bowling?”

“Ah…” Aridha’s brow furrowed. What the hell was bowling? “No?”

She grinned. “You’re gonna _love_ it”

  


Aridha stared down at the shiney black orb in his hands, his own confused reflection staring back up at him, distorted oddly around the round ball. He looked down the ‘bowling lane’ which appeared to be made out of polished wood leading to where seven odd bulbous pins like the kinds that subjugglators sometimes use to juggle sat upright.

He looked from the ball back to the pins, then over to Kelsie who stared at him expectantly, an excited smile on her face. “So I uh….I just…”

Keslie was now wearing a pale blue dress that went a little past her knees, and a white cowboy hat was currently battling with her copious amounts of wavy blonde hair. She also wore hoop earrings and shoes that Aridha recognized as cowboy boots from the human netflix he watched on Alternia.

Kelsie smiled her front-tooth-gapped smile at him, amusement in her eyes. “The point of the game is to knock over all the pins at the end of the lane.”

“Uhhh….” Aridha looked from the ball to the pins again, testing the weight of the ball. “Ok I guess...”

Before Kelsie could realize that Aridha had gotten the wrong impression about just how bowling was supposed to go, the troll had drawn his arm back shot-put style and hurled the bowling ball at the pins. The bowling ball slammed into the wall and then thunked harshly down onto the middle of the lane. The noise making Kelsie jump, Aridha grimace and flick back his ears, and a pack of elderly bowlers awaken from where they had fallen asleep during their weekly bowling night.

“Dangnabbit!” One of the pack of old men had yelled, some of the group startled from their seats. “The hell you doin over there?”

Aridha winced, his shoulders hunching. “Uh….”

“Sorry!” Keslie smiled and waved at the old men. “We’ll be more careful!”

“Aww hell.” one of the old men looked down to their watch. “It’s already eleven, we should be home by now.”

A mustachioed man tipped his hat to the other men. “See y’all at bowling night next wednesday.”

Kelsie had her hand to her mouth, trying to keep herself from laughing. She failed, doubling over in wheezing laughs as she held her middle, her cowboy hat dropping from her head onto the lane.

Aridha blushed, listening to the sounds of Kelsie’s laugh next to him. He didn’t really expect anything about this experience, but if he had been asked to imagine how any of this would have gone down, failing at bowling with his pale-date laughing at him wouldn’t have been one of the scenarios.

He hunched his shoulders, trying to mask his embarrassment with indignation. “Well then you do it if you’re the bowling expert!”

Kelsie flipped her head up, her wild blonde hair falling around her face as she smiled. “Woo! My turn!” Her eyes widened “Oh wait!”

The two of them looked at where Aridha’s bowling ball was still sitting in the middle of the lane, about two feet away from the pins.

Aridha grimaced. “It’s fine...I can go get it.”

“No WAIT!” Kelsie got a conspiratorial glint in her eyes, squinting up at the taller troll. “The rule is we can’t touch it, but maybe we can find a way to get it rolling again?”

Aridha raised a brow at her. “What?”

Kelsie walked out onto the bowling lane, the wood creaking under her step. “Wait...wait… hang on…” She began to jump up and down in the middle of the lane, her blue dress and long hair fluttering around her.

“Move-” Each one of Kelsie’s words were punctuated with her jumping and slamming her boots onto the walkway below her. “-You! Stupid! Ball!”

Kelsie turned to him where she was still jumping up and down. “Well?” Her hair bounced up and down. “You weight more than me! Come and help!”

Aridha gave her a flat look, amused despite himself as he watched the tiny human jump up and down in the bowling lane. “Did you just call me fat?”

Kalsie shot him a shit-eating grin. “Yes!”

Aridha snorted. “Alright hang on.”

Kelsie and Aridha jumped up and down in the middle of the lane, Kelsie laughing and taking a hold of Aridha’s arm to steady herself. Aridha tried not to be hyper aware of the contact, finding himself laughing with the tiny little human who was trying to help him cheat at bowling.

“Almost!” Kelsie grinned, her wavy blonde hair bouncing up and down with her like a joyous cloud, a sunshine sigh with every toss of the mane. “Almost there!”

She ducked down to see the ball’s progress as Aridha continued to jump. “IT’S WIGGLING!” She blew on the ball. “FOO! FOO! COME ON!” She grabbed her cowboy hat and began fanning it.

The ball was inching towards the pins.

“COME ON!” Kelsie pumped her fists. “YOU CAN DO IT!”

The ball meandered towards the pins, slow as molasses, Kelsie watching it with fevered anticipation.

The ball gently touched the side of the row of pins, knocking two of them over.

“WOO!” Kelsie wiggled where she was sitting on the bowling lane, kicking up her feet and falling back onto the wood. “SCORE!”

Aridha stopped jumping and let himself fall down onto the wood paneling. Kelsie lay besides him, laughing, her hair spread around her like a halo or rays from a sun. Aridha tried not to find it extremely endearing and failed.

“Hey!” a waitress rolled into the bowling area on a pair of roller skates, holding a tray of food that Kelsie had ordered for them. “Get off the bowling lane.”

Kelsie snorted, looking back at where the waitress was already retreating back into the kitchen. “Sorry!”

She looked back at Aridha, leaning close, her smile strained from the force it took not to laugh. “Hey Aridha?” She whispered.

“Yeah?” He whispered back, trying not to laugh himself.

She grinned, waggling her eyebrows. “We’re not supposed to be on the bowling lane, we’re being _so illegal_ right now.”

Aridha snorted. “You crafty rebel you.”

Kelsie snorted, scrambling up from the lane. Aridha tried not to miss the warmth of her arm pressed against his and followed.

“Well now-” Kelsie put her cowboy hat on and posed, sending a wink at Aridha who was now seated with their food, trying to maneuver his more than human sized bulk around the human sized table. “Lemme show you how a real Earth girl gets it done!”

Aridha gave her a look over his soda bottle and snorted. “Alright there real Earth girl.”

She flipped her hair over dramatically. “I will!”

Aridha rolled his eyes and smiled.

Kelsie put her thumb and forefingers in the three holes on the ball. “Visualize it…” She whispered over-seriously. “Know your ball. Be one with your ball.”

“Boo…” Aridha snickered. “Miss it. Miss it.”

Kelsie gave him a look over her shoulder, trying to give him the stink eye but failing because she was trying not to laugh, her nose wrinkled. “Shut up!”

Kelsie wound back her arm. “Be one with the GAHH!” Kelsie slipped on the polished wood just as she let go of her ball, falling backwards as he ball rolled away.

Aridha jumped up from his seat. “Are you ok?”

Before he could get to her, Kelsie’s ball connected with the pins at the end of the lane, knocking over three of them.

“AHAH!” Kelsie’s head popped up from the floor, her hair in her face. “WOO!” She pointed at him from where she still laid on the floor. “Take THAT!”

Aridha rolled his eyes, offering her a hand to help her up. “Yeah, yeah you got three pins.”

Kelsie took his hand, allowing herself to be pulled up. “One more pin than you!”

Aridha laughed, rescuing her cowboy hat from the floor and placing it squarely on her head. “Alright, whatever you did it real Earth girl.”

“Woo!” Kelsie pumped her hands again, trotting over to their table. “Let’s celebrate with food.”

Kelsie and Aridha sat down to a table of greasy bar food. Kelsie took her beer and flipped open the cap, letting the little metallic top fall somewhere behind her before taking a sip.

Aridha gave the beer a look. “So that’s a human soporific.”

“Yup!” Kelsie took a swig and then offered him the bottle.

Aridha sniffed it suspiciously and took a small sip, coughing and immediately passing it back to Kelsie. “Oh gods that’s vile!”

Kelsie nodded sagely, arching her eyebrows and taking a gulp of beer. “You guys are so lucky you can get drunk from sugar.”

Aridha took a swig of soda to rinse out the taste, feeling a pleasant buzz from the sugar. He went to the food, not really recognizing what it was other than it was fried and good.

Kelsie swished her bottle of beer, giving the troll across from her an appraising look. “So…” She prompted.

Aridha nearly choked on the french fry he had been eating, suddenly remembering what all of this was. “Ah…”

Kelsie gave him a look. “How are you?”

“I’m great.” Aridha lied on instinct, taking a longer gulp than necessary of his soda to keep from elaborating further.

Kelsie rolled her eyes. “Because you would travel halfway across the galaxy to hire a pale prostitute because you’re great.”

Aridha’s shoulders bunched up at the words ‘pale prostitute’ his cheeks coloring with brown. “It was...fuck it was my kismesis’s idea. I should never have come here this is-” He put a hand on his temple and grimaced, moving to cover his eyes. “This is so fucking messed up. You seem really nice and I am so sorry that I bothered you and-”

Kelsie snorted and gave him a look over her beer bottle. “Aridha shut up.”

Aridha looked at her through his fingers.

Kelsie shrugged. “Look I know this is a little bit weird for you but please don’t think that this is any kind of imposition on me.”

Aridha gave her a look. “How would this NOT be an imposition on you?”

Kelsie sighed “Ok how do I best explain this….” She gave him a conspiratorial look over the basket of french fries. “Imagine that you were on your home planet, doing whatever it was that you do every day.”

Aridha put another couple of fries in his mouth. “Ok…”

“And then BAM!” Kelsie smacked a fist into an open palm. “Aliens show up!” She pointed at him. “That’s you guys.”

Aridha snorted. “I figured.”

Kelsie shrugged and all the aliens started watching what you were already doing and were like- OH YEAH BABY-” She batted her eyelashes at Aridha who stopped to stare at her, fries still sticking out of his mouth. “You EAT that french fry! You eat it so GOOD!” She leaned over the table dramatically, looking up at him with wistful eyes. “I will pay you so much money to eat that french fry.”

Aridha was blushing brown again. “Wait so the french fry in this situation would be-”

Kelsie shrugged. “What you saw in the living room back at the house is what we did every wednesday even BEFORE Remado came. Rita met him where she worked at the nail salon and brought him over. We’re all a member of Phi Betta Kappa so-”

Arida suddenly remembered the lettering he couldn’t place on the plaque outside the house. “Wait what is a Phi Betta Kappa.”

“A sorority.” Kelsie shrugged. “A sorority for psychology students. The thing that trolls call pale prostitution is something we’re all studying to do professionally.”

Aridha was beginning to sweat. “I- I uh.” He swallowed “That doesn’t mean that you actually-”

“What?” Kelsie sighed “Actually care about you?”

Aridha winced.

Kelsie huffed. “I may not have known you for long, but I can see that you’re dealing with something, something big.” She frowned, her eyes going sad. “I can tell that you haven’t slept, that you’ve been chain smoking those cigarettes you have, that something is weighing so heavily on you that it’s destroying you from the inside out.”

Aridha stared back at her, feeling absolutely gutted. He put a hand over his mouth, not trusting himself to speak without sobbing.

“It’s called Kuebiko...If you want a precise word for it...” Kelsie murmured, looking over at him with soft eyes “The complete mental and physical exhaustion after a tragedy.”

Aridha looked away from her, his shoulders beginning to quake with the effort it took not to sob. “I just...I fucking...I-” He hissed, putting a hand to his forehead. “I shouldn’t...I should be able to deal with this. I shouldn’t be this weak. I...” He rubbed his eyes, an exhausted slant to his shoulders. “I should be better by now but I’m...I’m not…” He admitted quietly.

“Alysim.” Kelsie murmured over the top of her beer bottle. “The restlessness that comes from being unwell.” She gave him a meaningful look. “Also there is no set schedule to grief. It doesn’t make you weak to need time.”

“I’ve already gone over every bit of it.” Aridha bit his lip. “Over and over and I just can’t let it go.”

“Altschmerz.” Kelsie replied, tapping the rim of the bottle to her lips. “The act of chewing over old problems until there is no longer any fresh pain. Or maybe klexos, the art of dwelling on the past.”

Aridha rested his chin on a hand. “You have a word for everything don’t you?”

Kelsie gave him a somber look from over the top of her beer bottle. “Sometimes all it takes is to find the right word or set of words, pull them apart strand by strand in order to really capture a feeling and get a grasp on it.” She leaned towards him. “You have to really look at what you’re feeling, put a name or many names to it, in order to know how to work through it.”

Words had never quite been Aridha’s specialty. He bit his lip, running a clawed hand through his messy hair, tugging at where it was snagged. “I don’t...I don’t really know where to start."

“The important thing is to start.” Kelsie urged. “It’s ok if you don’t get it right away.”

“I…” Aridha fisted a hand in the fabric of his pants. He could feel tears beading in his eyes and suddenly felt exposed under the harsh glare of the bowling alley fluorescents. “I uh…” He sniffed and rubbed a hand across his eyes. “Is it uh...Is it ok if we go somewhere else though?”

Kelsie looked back at where the waitress had just finished sweeping, looking down to her watch and then over to them with the sort of grimace all late-night waitstaff share when customers just won’t get out of their damn restaurant.

Kelsie nodded. “Yeah this place is about to close anyways.”

Aridha looked puzzled for a moment. “But it’s only the middle of the night.”

Kelsie gave him a smile. “We’re a diurnal species.”

Aridha’s cheeks colored briefly, realizing he had just asked an obvious question. “...Ah.”

She laughed gently, reaching over the table to put a tiny peach hand over his comparably massive grey one. “Let’s go to the park.”

The bowling alley door was locked behind them, the fluorescent lights from within that had been lighting the street were switched off, leaving the two of them on relative darkness.

“Come on.” Kelsie put her hand in his, a tiny tether in this deserted world, pulling him down the sidewalk. “This way to the park.”

Aridha had never seen a place look so deserted, especially in the middle of the night. Like this it was like he and Kelsie were the only people on the entire planet, marooned sailors traveling through the lonely islands of light sent down from the street lamps above them.

Finally they crossed an empty street and into a park. The moonlight glinted across the lone jungle gym, illuminating the steel bars like a spiderweb of pale light. A pair of swings sat in a shallow gravel pit, like sentries watching over the abandoned park. The little park was bracketed on either sides by a grass hill, trees sending shocks of dark shadow across the play area. A breeze cut through the muggy night to welcome them, making the swingsets creak ever so slightly like an invitation to come play.

Aridha lit another redherb cigarette, the fire at the end a tiny red cherry in the darkness. He took the invitation, crossing over to the swings, and testing them before sitting down. “We had these on Alternia.”

Kelsie sat on the swing next to him, rocking back and forth a bit, kicking up her cowboy boots and letting her cowboy hat fall to the gravel behind her, setting her wild blonde hair free. “Some things are universal I guess.”

Aridha shrugged. “When the new empress accepted help from the humans to rebuild Alternia in a kinder way, they came over and built hospitals and uh…” Aridha rocked back and forth on the swing, kicking a bit at the gravel beneath him. “They built swings outside of the hospital for the kids to play on.”

“Semaphorism.” Kelsie whispered, the moon reflecting her eyes and turning them silver as she gazed sadly at him. “A conversational hint that there is something emotional and personal to the speaker in the subject.”

Aridha’s shoulders shook. He clasped a hand over his mouth to stifle the sob that had already been halfway out of his mouth. Tears streamed down his face, over his fingers and dripped onto the fabric of his pants. “Fuck!” He swore, a painful intake of breath that was half-sob. “Fuck I loved him so much.” He covered his eyes, the heels of each hand in his sockets as he bawled.

Kelsie rose from her seat next to him, kneeling in front of him and setting a tiny warm hand on his knee. She looked up at him with her moon silvered eyes and Aridha couldn’t fathom why she would, but he knew. Just by the look on her face, he knew that she really did care.

“Tell me about him?” She asked quietly.

Here in this tiny abandoned children’s park, on this deserted street, in this empty city, on this tiny blue and green speck in the vastness of the universe a human girl and a troll boy looked at each other.

There’s something horrible about it, isn’t it? Opening one’s soul so absolutely painfully to another, pulling your heart from your chest and placing it in their hands. Letting someone see all of your flaws, insecurities, doubts, knowing that if they squeezed just so on the tender little thing you put in their care, that they could undo you so fully that you could maybe never recover.

It is also, the most necessary, and absolutely essential tenderness the soul can ever feel.

Every creature across every galaxy, ever since anything even remotely resembling intelligent life crawled it’s way out of the primordial ooze, turned to its other, and garbled something like a word, has felt it. It was the entire purpose for words in the first place.

The innate desire to be completely and wholly understood by another, and to understand them in kind.

Even a species like the trolls, having had their crawling out of the Alternian seas, blinking bewildered up at their two moons and the vastness of space beyond them, billions of years before the first primate ever emerged on Earth, were not immune to it. Despite thousands of years of war and cruelty and systematic brutality trying to beat it out of their bones they still felt it deep in their DNA.

Something that humans called humanity, but really it spread across all peoples across all galaxies. Each troll, human, mass of tentacles, or ball of transdimensional energy turning to the stars or to their fellows and asking:

Am

I

Alone?

Am I an unknown thing? The soul of my being untouched and dark on the corners of this map or will you know me? Really know me?

Here in this tiny abandoned park, by a dark bowling alley, on this deserted street, in this empty city, on this tiny blue and green speck, in the vastness of the universe, a troll boy and a human girl looked at each other and in that moment it was like they were the only two people in the entire goddamn _universe_.

Aridha looked back at her, this tiny little thing with her moon silvered eyes and her hair blowing around them.

He told her.

He told her about a boy that he loved. A little rust troll who had lived next to him as a child, the first person to map out his heart, his first love. The two of them making a pair that knew each other so fully, that the edges of their souls were blurred together.

A boy who meant the world to him, who he would protect with every fiber of his being. Who wound redfruit flowers into the braid of his hair, the gentle curve of his horns holding Aridha’s entire past, present and future.

The boy who got sick.

The boy who wouldn’t get better, no matter how Aridha tended to him. The boy who was taken to the hospital that had been set up by humans.

The boy that was given a prognosis.

Aridha told her how Trolls had never known how to care for the sick before the humans came, how they had just culled the weak and called it a day before, and now were _so unprepared_ when faced with a slow but certain death.

How angry he was that they couldn’t fix it. For all their wonders, they hadn’t learned yet how to cure their own cancer, much less the troll equivalent.

He told her about the white halls of the human hospital, the way they always smelled like bleach. How they wouldn’t let him bring redfruit flowers into Korish’s room because they were too unhygienic.

How thin Korish got, his hands cold and almost skeletal when Aridha held them, brought the other’s knuckles to his lips and kissed them. The machines at his bedside, feeding a steady drip of drugs into his veins to keep him from feeling his own insides rebel against him. How he couldn’t eat anymore no matter how weak the broth was that Aridha or a nurse tried to pour down his throat. How he would vomit until there was blood splattered onto his pillowcase.

How Aridha had held him in those final days. Korish small and bony, fragile like a baby bird in his arms.

“Aridha.” Korish had whispered to him, voice small and raspy, oxygen tube in his nose and his lips cracked. Red tears fell down his cheeks, one side of his hair matted from where it had laid on the hospital bed for so long. “I’m scared.”

Aridha held him tighter, careful of his fragileness, wishing he could stop his own tears. “I am too.”

Korish wound his skinny arms around the other’s neck. “Stay with me.” he commanded, tiny and scared, as if Aridha would ever deny him a request, if he even had the power too.

Korish looked up at him, small and in pain and so tired, on the edge of death and fighting it to stay with Aridha for a moment longer, one moment longer, please just one moment longer. “Stay with me when it happens?”

“I will.” Aridha kissed him. “Of course I will.” He put their foreheads together. “I won’t ever leave you.”

“Aridha…” Korish choked out a sob, eyes hazy with the drugs in his veins. “Aridha I want to see the stars.”

And Aridha picked him up, the little rust bird small and fragile. He carried him to the window, unlatched it and stepped through. He brought Korish out into the night, hospital gown glowing in the light of the twin Alternian moons. He brought them out into the star light, lowering them onto the grass of the court yard.

There were people yelling at him, but they were hazy in the background, fading until it was just the both of them, the only two people left the entire universe.

Redfruit blossoms swirled around them and there gazing up at the night stars Korish smiled ever so slightly and exhaled his last breath, eyes going dark and limbs going slack.

Aridha held him and he screamed. He cried into Korish’s hospital gown and held onto his body that was growing colder, shoving away the hands of the nurses and orderlies that pried them apart.

The teal human-trained nurse who finally pried his arms away looked down at him with such disgusted disbelief. Aridha could see in his eyes that to him Korish had just been another rust blood, same as the thousands who were hatched every year, indistinguishable and interchangable and Aridha had never been so angry in his life.

Something pure and beautiful had been extinguished and Aridha knew that nothing in the universe would ever be the same again. It was like the moon had fallen down from the sky, it was as if the seas dried up, as if the entirety of the planet had cracked in half and only Aridha seemed to notice. The entirety of existence was shattered, and they all expected him to pick up the pieces of his heart and go about his day quietly like the rest of them.

Aridha told her all of this. He told her how angry he was, how helpless he felt, how grief smothered everything, how Korish had held so much of his soul and how he worried that he had taken it when he died, how he feared he would never be whole again.

Kelsie listened, she held him and she cried with him. They had moved to the grassy hill and they laid together and cried for a troll who Kelsie hadn’t ever known, but knew just how completely and absolutely loved he had been.

She told him that she was sorry, that she could see how much he loved him, that she knew Korish was grateful that Aridha had been with him until the end, that the love they had shared had really been something beautiful.

Aridha spoke and Kelsie was right, emotions began to be sorted as they were spoken out loud, pieces crystalizing into focus as they were named.

They fell asleep on the grassy hill, tear tracks on their face as a the kind of cathartic quiet that could only come after such an intimate bearing of one’s soul can bring.

  


Aridha woke up to a gentle dappling of yellow light across his face, the sounds of children playing. A human child kicked a plastic ball into his side.

A tiny brown doe-eyed face came into view, haloed by yellow light. “Sorry mister troll man.” They whispered, collecting their ball and leaving with a shriek of laughter as they joined their playmates.

Kelsie stirred from where she had been nestled into the crook of his arm, rising with a stretch and a squeak, rubbing her back that protested at having had slept on the bare ground.

Aridha snorted, a smile on his lips at the grass stuck in her hair.

Kelsie seemed to get it, giggling back at him. She took a handful of grass and threw it at him, making Aridha snort and brush it away.

The sun was warm on their shoulders where it peeked through the cool shade of the tree above them. The world and the universe was populated again, the sounds of kids playing breaking through the bubble around them.

Aridha was suddenly hyper aware of all of it, of every blade of living grass under him, of the yellow warm sun on his face, the smell of grass and the sounds of children playing. He felt connected to it, to all of it, his soul spread out and touching the life around him.

“Occhiolism.” Kelsie whispered, looking up through the gaps between the leaves, her eyes honey-gold with the sunlight. “The acute awareness of the smallness of your perspective.” She closed her eyes and hummed. “....Or maybe Ambedo, the sudden hyper-awareness of every vivid sensory detail.”

A breeze brew past them, playing with her gold hair and pulling at Aridha’s t-shirt before leaving the both of them.

“Gezelligheid.” Kelsie guessed “To be warmed and cocooned, cozy and safe with another person.” She pulled her knees towards her. “ Or maybe....Sonder.” Kelsie murmured, smiling down the hill at the children who played there. “The awareness that each living being is experiencing a life as vivid and complex as your own.”

Aridha stared back at her, his eyes flickering across her face as he tried to commit every piece of her to memory, trying to distill whatever the feeling it was that he felt here on this hilltop and bring it with him. He frowned, feeling the once again populated universe intrude.

“I have to…” Aridha’s voice was scratchy from having cried all the previous night. “I have to catch a ship…”

Kelsie nodded, biting her lower lip. She took his hands in her own, rubbing a tiny soft thumb across his knuckles. “Fago.” She whispered.

Aridha smiled sadly back at her. “And what does that one mean?”

Kelsie paused, smiling and swallowing before she answered. “Feeling pity for someone in need that leads to true care for them.” She gave him a watery smile and sniffed. “But with the knowledge that you’ll soon loose them.”

Aridha looked back at her. “Thank you…” He told her, raising her hands towards his face and placing a soft kiss to the palm of her hand. “For everything.”

  


This time when Aridha boarded the bus there was a small girl in a blue dress and cowboy boots watching from the curb, the wind playing with the blue fabric and drying the tear tracks across her cheeks.

Aridha sat on his bunk, ship heading back to Alternia, his eyes closed as he held onto the memory of a silver night and a golden hued morning.

 

Redfruit blossoms were woven into wild blonde hair, him and Korish sitting on a pair of swings and looking up at the white human moon. The entirety of Aridha’s past present and future resting on the gentle curve of Korish’s horn and caught in Kelsie’s warm gap-toothed smile.

  
  



	2. Tea leaves part 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Following a miss Katie Johnson, a child psychology student and pale prostitute in Texas with a dark past. When Remado gets another former subjuggulator as a client, Katie wants to be the one to speak with them.
> 
> We're continuing the "Pale Prostitute" idea, getting more info about the other girls in the house and how the brothel came to be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1st part of the second segment of the pale brothel ficlets. Just warning you that we're probably going to keep going into some very dark themes and intense emotions. This first chapter is just set-up though.

She was the sort of small and quiet girl who could blend into a any room. She was skinny and short, with the kind of face that depending on how she wore her makeup, and what clothes she wore, could convincingly appear to be any age ranging from 12 to 37. She had knobbly knees, long pianist fingers that ended with nails bitten down to the quick, large glassy-green eyes and limp pale blonde hair.

She was an unintentional loner, someone who wanted so badly to be included in everything,  _ anything, _ but for whatever reason finding themselves unable.

Anyone from her high school looking through their yearbook, would flip through the grainy pages scrawled with signatures of their friends would see her, over and over again. She would be in the background of the honor society class, the cheerleading team, the chess team, the book club, the prom decorating commission...These people would find her pale solemn face in the background of every single picture of every single club like the ghost of some sad victorian girl haunting the school, some clubs they themselves were a part of and yet-

None of them could remember her name.

They would flip through the pages of each individual student until they found her, staring back at the camera, expressionless and pale.

Katie Johnson.

A name so bland that it seemed almost intentionally chosen to be so, tacked onto an odd little being that couldn’t ever find her place. A sad little ghost quietly moving from group to group and leaving no impact.

If any of them had any recollection of the sad spectre in the yearbook after seeing the name, they would, without fail, simply shrug, take a sip of their wine and offer- “I don’t know… She was weird I guess.” Before going back to their lives and never thinking of her again.

The odd pale spectre was, at the moment, waiting at a bus stop. Even with Texas’ mild winters she was bundled up, a white puffy coat with her skinny legs peeking out making her look like a marshmallow on stilts. Her hands were cold, but then again her hands were always cold- poor circulation, holding a cigarette delicately, the lit end a tiny cherry in the darkness. She rocked back and forth impatiently, making her boots squeak against the pavement.

A group of young men walked by, one of them eying the slight curve of her leg appearing from under her skirt. Though this little performance wouldn’t be for her, nobody catcalls and expects the girl to swoon, no this was for the other men who traveled with him. He grinned, turning to her and swaggering his shoulders “Damn girl!”

Another one of the men hit him in the shoulder. “Kyle! What the fuck dude!”

Katie turned to the group, eyes wide with astonishment, her plasticy coat and boots squeaking and-

Katie immediately began to cry.

The group of men stopped in their tracks, suddenly seeing a world reflected in the fat tears rolling down her cheeks where their actions might have consequences. “Oh shit!” the man apparently named Kyle yelped and began to run, the most of the group following suit.

One man stayed behind, looking at where his friends ran off to and then back to Katie, his shoulders slumping when he realized he couldn’t leave her there in good conscience. He approached the sobbing Katie like an animal control officer approaching a rabid raccoon.

“Miss?” He bowed over slightly trying to get a good look at her face, hunching in on himself to seem less threatening. “Miss are you ok?”

Katie continued to cry, sliding down the wall of the bus stop, and wrapping her arms around her knees.

“Oh man…” He looked back at the street, obviously considering the optics of a tall man standing over a tiny crying girl. “Miss? Please can I help you? What’s wrong?”

Katie looked up at him then, all wide watery eyes and tear-streaked cheeks.

He cringed at how young she looked. “God damnit Kyle,” He whispered to himself. He grimaced, rubbing a hand across the back of his neck. “Can… Can I call your mom?”

That just made the tears  _ worse _ , Katie wheezing with the force of it. Sobs wracked her entire frame, coughing as her lungs struggled to pump air into her bird-thin chest.

“Shit!” He got onto his knees in front of her, pushing back a dreadlock, eyes wide with panic. He opened his backpack and began to dig. “Please stop crying, it will be ok! I think I have a bottle of water and some tissues in here somewhere-” In his haste he accidentally flipped a tupperware container out of his backpack, splattering what looked like soup all over the concrete.

“Dammit,” He groaned, one hand still stuck in his bag and the other one outstretched as if he could wind back time and recover his soup. “That was my lunch for tomorrow.”

“A bat,” Katie whispered, staring at the shape of the soup dripping across the ground. She pulled her inhaler out of her bag and took a puff, never taking her eyes off if it. “That’s a bad omen.”

The man paused where he had been digging for a water bottle, dumbfounded for a moment. “...a what?”

“A bat, fire,” Katie pointed at a splatter of soup off the the side. “The sign of the bat means that undertakings will be fruitless,” She bit her thumbnail, eyes flicking across the mess “That  combined with the fire means that there is hurt... but no healing,” She pointed to another bit of splatter, dots leading to something vaguely shaped like an ‘m’. “Though, you can see the sign of the the chain, leading to the waterbird…”

He raised a finger “That’s a noodle actually-”

“Leading to the sign of the water bird,” Katie repeated, not seeming to hear him as her eyes traced over the shape. “a chain of events will lead to purification and new beginnings.”

The man sat next to her, trying to find whatever pattern she could see in the splattered soup. She gave her a side glance. “Uh…. right…”  He leaned back. “Um… can I call your parents to come pick you up, or call you an Uber or-

“I’m twenty two.” Katie whispered back, bringing her cigarette back to her lips. She looked up the street where a bus was beginning to pull into the curb.

“Uh…” He coughed into a fist. “Sorry,” He rose from the concrete, brushing off his basketball shorts and held out a hand to help her out. “I’m Darren by the way.”

“Katie.” She answered back, taking his hand and letting him help her up.

She looked back at the mess, stepping over another noodle that had landed in an odd way, like an m with an extra hump and giving it a hard stare. “There are challenges ahead.” Katie whispered, looking up to look Darren in the eye. “I wonder if we’ll be up to it?”

And with that, Katie got on the bus and left.

“Ok…” Darren’s nose was crinkled. He waved a hand half-heartedly. “Bye I guess…Weird…. soup girl?...” He shook his head, picking up his backpack and shrugging it on. He huffed. “... What the actual fuck was that?”   
  


 

 

Katie leaned against the window of the bus, eyes trailing across the dirt encrusted onto the glass. The sign of the ants, of the beast, and the knot...

More bad omens. 

The universe was telling her that there was something difficult coming her way. She tilted her head, tracing a thin finger against another couple flecks of dirt. The sign of the arrow means news was coming. The sign of the bridge means a journey. The anchor meant reluctance, or perhaps difficulty in changing, being tethered to the past.

“You’re coming from a very long way away,” Katie whispered, reading the symbols as they came. “You have a lot of troubles in your head, but it isn’t all your fault… is it?”   
  
  


 

Katie’s mother once sat with her daughter on the dingy kitchen floor, analysing the shards of porcelain and splatters of oatmeal from the winnie-the-pooh mug her daughter had accidentally dropped. The wind outside groaned and pushed against their windows, making the single bulb above the kitchen flicker, sand creeping in from the crack of the door as they weathered another dust storm.

“Cause and effect,” Her mother had explained, eying a raisin as if it had the secrets of the universe printed onto its tiny wrinkles. “Since the big bang the entirety of existence has been one long chemical reaction, everything that ever has and ever will be, is already mathematically certain, your entire life written into the equation of everything. The sun shines, the flower grows, the butterfly is attracted to the flower, the bird eats the butterfly, everything down to the synapses in your brain boiled down to a simple cause-and effect….”

She was breathing heavily, her beaded necklaces hanging from her throat and catching the light from the spare bulb in the kitchen, the mats in her hair trailing down her back in thick lumps meant to resemble dreadlocks. “This chain of causality is so far-reaching that at times it can  _ appear _ chaotic, but that’s only because we don’t have the ability to see the full picture. We’re too busy being a domino in the chain to see the entirety of it. But like the pattern the dominoes were set in, there is order and design.”

Katie sat on the linoleum, her knees bruised and her eyes wide as she listened to her mother talk. In that tiny shack in that tiny compound in that massive desert her mother had been her whole world in more ways than one, and her word was law second only to one other.

“And as the scientist can predict the outcome of mixing chemicals in a solvent, one logical step in front of another logical step, the drawn-out chemical reaction that has been everything that ever has been, what appears to be random chance is  _ anything but _ …” She jerked her head to the side as she followed the curve of the mug’s broken handle. “What appears to others as random patterns in a mug of oatmeal shattered on the floor, can contain the echoes of what is to come.”

“Like tracing paper pressed to a wonderful work of art, in these moments-” She leaned down to the floor, nose to nose with the dismembered head of Winnie-the-Pooh that had been printed onto the outside of the mug. “-here we can  _ see into the divine _ .”   
  
  


 

Katie only looked up when the electronic voice called out her stop through the bus intercoms. She got off the bus, walking the half a block it took to reach the Phi Betta Kappa house she lived in with twenty other girls. 

Oh, and one giant purple effeminate clown alien.

Him too.

Everyone had been so surprised when he had come.

...

Everyone but Katie that is.

  
  
  


[2 years ago]

Katie was currently going to Texas-state University to become a child psychologist, chasing her demons all the way into a career field, and had joined the psychology sorority in another semi-successful attempt at being included. However, for the first time in her life she had been welcomed into the fold, taking up the position as the weird one in the group. Though being the weird one in a psychology major’s sorority where the most empathetic and emotionally intelligent college girls congregated to, meant that Katie was spiritually adopted by just about every girl living there.

“You dombt umberstamb,” Rita who was the unofficial leader of the group, sobbed at Katie drunkenly the first week Katie got there, putting down her mojito and picking Katie up to hug her to her ample chest. Rita’s black braid was in Katie’s face as she sobbed and petted Katie’s blonde hair. “Yourb my bapy now.” 

“THAT GOES FOR THE RESBT OF YOU!” Rita had picked the tiny Katie up with one arm like a baby doll and pointed to the rest of the drunk girls in the sorority, summing up everyone’s positions with a succinct- “I’M ALL YOURSES MOMB NOW!”

The night progressed as it usually did in the sorority, with a drunken Disney movie marathon and sing-a-long, a lot of emotional storytelling, several bouts of crying interspersed with loud cries of aggressive emotional support from the group along the lines of “WE’RE ALL HERE FOR YOU BABE!”, “YOU’RE SHO STRONG!” and “HE DOESN’T DESHERVE YOU!”

It went on that way for a least a year, the healthy close-knit group that Katie had always wanted. It was a house teeming with life, all borrowing each other’s clothes and hair-dryers, or yelling that someone ate the scooby doo fruit snacks they had been saving in the back of the cupboard, or having yoga on the flat roof people could only access by crawling out of the second story bathroom.

“Hey Rita?” Madeline, a girl with green eyes and wavy brown hair asked as she stuck her head out of the second story bathroom window. “Mind if I pee while you’re out here?”

Rita cracked open an eye where she had been doing the Vriksasana yoga pose on the roof with a couple of other girls, leaning back into an arch as she shrugged. “Yeah just close the window so I don’t have to listen to the sound of you pissing like a horse, and open it when you’re done so I can get back inside.”

Madeline gave her a thumbs up and reeled back into the house.

That morning Katie had been eating cornflakes when Rita shimmied down the trellis leading from the upper story to the patio, still wearing her workout gear.

“Bitch forgot to open the bathroom window when she was done,” Rita announced as she slammed open the sliding glass door and stalked into the kitchen. She sighed, pouring herself a cup of coffee and taking a swig. “I should rescue Helen and Lorraine, they’re still stuck on the roof.”

“Maybe if you leave them up there long enough they’ll forgive each other.” Katie mused, crunching through a bite of cereal and slurping some of the milk from the bowl.

Rita snickered. Helen and Lorraine had gotten into a prank-war that had escalated until Lorraine had dumped purple dye into Helen’s body wash bottle, and Helen had dumped hair-remover in Lorraine’s shampoo. This had led to an irate purple Helen, and a crying bald Lorraine. After that Rita had smacked both girls upside the head and forcefully demand that they make up. Part of her plan was a series of “chakra-cleansing” activities starting with roof yoga and ending with a trip to the club later that week.

“Lol I wish.” Rita drained her coffee. “Let’s just hope they don’t kill each other before I can get upstairs and unlock the window.”

Rita turned to leave, about to put her cup in the sink when she paused. 

She handed Katie the dirty cup, coffee grounds in the bottom of it. She leaned an elbow onto the kitchen counter. “Tell me what kind of day I’ll have?”

Katie took the cup, happy to be appreciated. She stared into the coffee grounds. Her eyes flicked over the dark smudges at the bottom of the cup. 

“I see… the broom,” Katie whispered “There are changes ahead,” She turned the coffee mug and squinted. “Also there is the sign of the bouquet,” She looked up at Rita “You’ll have luck with romance soon.”

Rita looked uncomfortable for a moment. “You know I’m ace right?”

Katie passed back the cup. “Romance doesn’t always mean sex.”

Rita sighed, putting the cup into the sink. “Try telling every fucking guy on this planet that.”

Rita had then gone and rescued Helen and Lorraine, both of them squabbling and having to be held apart by Rita, who smacked them upsides the head and forced them to go to class. Rita forced a beanie on the now bald Lorraine, and informed Helen that being purple was no fucking excuse for missing a lecture. She pushed the both of them out the door, grabbing the keys to her shitty Honda to drop them off before going to her job as a part-time nail technician.

Katie watched them go, feeling fond and amused. She finished her bowl of cornflakes, seeing the sign of the bridge and of time in the little crumbs of wet cereal at the bottom. She tilted her head, studying it closely. “...And Rita’s mystery man had to travel a long way to get here.”

 

Later that night Rita came home with the story of the troll she met at work.

“So first of all trolls are way bigger than I thought they were,” Rita explained to a captivated audience on the living room floor of the sorority house. “And he was so sweet when I did his nails! He seemed genuinely interested in my life and really liked the design I did for his nails and-”

“Did you do paint the little pelicans and the sunsets like you did on my nails?” Jenny piped in.

Rita huffed. “That’s really not the important part of the story.”

Annalise raised her hand “What about the geometric designs outlined in silver like you did for me for Christmas last year?”

“Focus!” Rita put out her hands. “He was really tall and really sweet! Also I am 95% sure he was high but he told me that it was because-”

Hannah also raised her hand “Or the ombre nails with the sparkle finish like-”

Rita sighed. “I did a purple gel base with an opalescent finish and dipped the ends in a gold edging ok?”

Jenny, Annalise and Hannah gasped. “oooooOOOOoooo!”

“FOCUS,” Rita put up her hands. “He said he was high because that was the only way he could psych himself up to go to the nail salon,” She leaned in closer. “He’s new on the planet and he seems lonely. From what I’ve seen about Alternia, trolls have a harder time finding casual intimacy, so even letting someone like, do your nails is a big thing.”

“Aww,” Helen frowned, twisting a piece of unintentionally purple-tipped blonde hair with a purple finger. “That’s so sad.”

Emma nodded sagely. “I theorized that Alternians, having been raised in an ultra-militaristic society before their new empress came to power, suffer from a type of toxic masculinity. Forcing themselves to repress emotion, glorifying anger and violence, untrusting, the domination of the other….” She tapped her lips, her brow furrowing. “Though we’ll need a new term for it to apply to aliens…. Perhaps hegemonic hemoclassism?” She shrugged. “Eh, I’ll think of a better name.”

Kelsie appeared from the kitchen, beer in hand. “That’s like… so sad.”

“He asked me to hang out,” Rita gushed “And if he’s not too insane I’ll bring him to the club later in the week to meet everybody.”

 

What happened next was, in retrospect, a whirlwind pale romance between Rita, the leader of the sorority, and the purple ex-subjugglator and newcomer to the planet, Romado Oakmah. When Rita introduced him to the rest of the group he seemed nervous, always looking back to Rita for some sort of approval before asking someone about their most recent break-up or letting someone braid his hair. She would always smile and nod, urging him on to further interact with the group.

While he was obviously closest to Rita, the both of them always going someplace or staying in to cuddle and watch movies, everyone built their own steady rapport with him. He bloomed under the constant attention, trilling or purring whenever he was hugged or had his hair played with at group movie nights, and was soon assimilated into the group. It was more than obvious that he wasn’t interested in anything sexual when it came to any of them, and so they could relax and enjoy the attention he gave in return. 

He was like the stereotypical gay BFF, except this one could lift a car off the ground when helping Rita change the tires on her shitty Honda, or could even toss the small car if the need ever came. It came in handy more than once to have a 7-foot alien with sharp teeth on your side, growling at fuckboys who couldn’t take “no” for an answer when they accosted one of the girls at the club. Remado technically still had his own suite in one of the more expensive apartment complexes, but it seemed that he slept in Rita’s room more than he ever stayed there, and soon he moved in completely.

Remado told them about his life on Alternia, having been conscripted into the Church of the Mirthful Messiahs for most of his young adult life before the new empress had taken over. The Church sounded like a hellish place and these stories hit Katie hard, being unfortunately able to relate to many of them. They all came to  a greater understanding of what they all meant to one another in the eyes of Alternian culture, and all of the girls took to the title of “palemates” as a title for the odd but comfortable relationship they all had. 

Rita helped Remado quit the drugs he had been taking to cope, Rita got the pale romance she always wanted, and everyone was happier for having met.

After some long conversations with Remado, it was Rita, sharp and clever as ever, that thought of a way to capitalize on the discovery of the pale quadrant.

 

“So,” Rita stood in the middle of the living room, surveying the girls gathered there like a general preparing for war. “I’m sure you’re all wondering why I called this house meeting.”

“Not really,” Carmelita yawned from where she was half asleep on Remado’s lap, the both of them on the couch, the troll idly running clawed fingers through her hair. “You always think of some bullshit to call a house meeting.”

Lorraine, now sporting a pixie cut raised her hand. “Is it because someone stole your socks?”

Rita was taken aback. “What? Someone stole my socks?”

Lorraine looked off to the side for a moment. “No...”

“Anyways!” Rita shook her head, going back to the topic at hand. “I have an idea and I want all of you in on it,” She put her hands on her hips. “Since you’re all in on the psychology program at Texas U, then you know that you need to do so many interviews with a ‘novel psychological subject’. Troll culture is more militaristic than ours, but trolls still desire platonic intimacy, though can feel societal pressure against seeking it” She motioned over to Remado who blinked, not expecting to be brought into this “We can’t get a more ‘novel psychological subject’ than an alien can we?” She shrugged “See where I’m going? There are all kinds of trolls who desire a service and we need tuition money for grad school….”

“So!” Rita clapped her hands, looking conspiratorially at the other girls in the house. “How can we both get ‘novel psychological subjects’ for our current work and eventual doctorates, while also gathering the tuition money needed?”

The girls thought hard for a moment, not quite connecting the dots.

Rita sighed. “Do I have to draw a fucking flowchart?”

“WOO!” Kelsie threw down her cowboy hat and whistled, understanding where Rita was going but wanting her to suffer through drawing a flowchart nonetheless “WE DEMAND A FLOWCHART!”

Rita sighed.

Ten minutes later Rita dragged a whiteboard to the common room and was furiously scribbling, the cap of the dry erase marker in her mouth. “So!” Rita pulled the cap from her mouth and snapped the marker shut. “We market ourselves as a pale brothel, Remado secures us clients and screens them. Trolls travel TO US and PAY US to listen to their stories, we cheer them up. We get the material for our studies, and the funds to pay for it.”

Helen looked impressed “That’s actually really smart.”

Remado tapped his lips with a gold-tipped claw. “If we stay to clients under my caste I would be able to make sure nothing gets out of hand…”

Rita pointed the marker at Remado. “Exactly.”

Kelsie smiled over her drink. “What are we waiting for then?”   
  
  


The plan, so far, worked to perfection. Only one or two clients were taken in a night, making them easily manageable. Trolls told their stories, weeping into the laps of pretty sorority girls who cooed and petted their hair while thinking how best to add their interview to their upcoming paper, and money was flowing freely.

There were some things that the girls weren’t ready for, like just how violent the previous reign had been. Some of the stories that average green and brown bloods told seemed like something out of a warzone that happened every day on the planet, and for those who were old enough to have been conscripted into the fleet, the tales just got worse and worse. Alternia from before the current empress seemed like a hellish place, scarring most of its inhabitants for the rest of their lives. 

Many clients were outwardly afraid of Remado, and learning about the stories some of them had of subjuggulators, it wasn’t hard to figure out why. Remado would sometimes retire to Rita’s room after meeting a particularly fearful client, the other girls listening to hushed sobs and whispered conversation through the walls. Remado’s previous life was something all of the girls had to come to terms with on their own. It was hard to reconcile the idea of their friend being a terrifying tool for the previous regime. Though what could he have done when the previous empress was still around?

Back then… being a subjuggulator wasn’t something you walked away from alive. You did what you were told, no matter what it was and hoped to live to the next day.   
  
  


 

When Katie got home that night, shrugging off her puffy coat and putting it on the rack by the door, Remado was at the kitchen table, his cigarette holder perched delicately between elegantly painted claws. He scrolled through something on his laptop, his brows furrowed.

“So…” Katie toed off her boots, setting them in the tray by the door “I was right. Someone IS coming.”

Remado huffed, tapping some ash off the end of his long dragon-shaped cigarette holder. “You always were perceptive.”

“The universe lets us know.” Katie sat across from him. “You only have to pay attention.” She cocked her head, taking in the furrow in his brow and the stiffness in his shoulders “Someone is coming, and whoever it is has you worried.”

Remado sighed, blowing out a puff of red smoke from the Alternian redherb cigarette. “It’s a purple… someone I knew from… from the church. He’s a good guy, a little bit of an idiot,  but...”

Katie gave him a look. “And?”

“The empire was hell hun…” He took another drag of his cigarette, leaning back in the chair, his braid undone, the silk of his purple robe shining in the light. “You got a job to do, and if you didn’t do it you were culled,” He sighed, putting out his cigarette, his expression far-away. “and sometimes the job you were assigned was killing people in the worst ways you could imagine.”

He watched the red smoke rise listlessly from the ashtray. “It’s years of conditioning and training to make you into a monster. They tell you that the lives you take are meaningless without their ultimate sacrifice, hell… some of them even believe it themselves. They tell you that it’s for some greater good, give you all the drugs you could ever want to dull the pain but…”

“It still does something to you…” Katie’s eyes shone in the dull yellow light of the kitchen, wide and unseeing for a moment. “...even if you can’t recognize it at the time,” Katie answered back. “They build a whole world around you and you’re left with nothing when it ends.”

Remado smiled sadly. “You’re right.” He sighed, running a hand down his face. “I know him and I don’t think he’s bad... per se, but he’s a purple and if anything goes wrong it will REALLY go wrong.”

Katie thought about what Remado went through, about her mother still in the desert. It felt like a chance to save someone where she couldn’t before. “Let me talk to him.” 

“No,” Remado shook his head, closing the laptop “He’s now coming anywhere near any of you.”

Katie pulled back her hair, worrying her bottom lip. For a moment she could hear the windchimes that had been hung outside the compound. “Out of all of us, I would know what he’s going through the most.”

Remado looked at her sadly for a moment, reaching across the table and covering her tiny hand with his. “I know…. But Katie…” He looked earnestly down at her “...He’s the same caste as me, and he’s bigger…” He shook his head “I’m not sure if I can fight him off if this goes bad…”

Katie stared back at him, eyes yellow-gold in the light and shining with determination. “I want to talk to him.”

Remado sighed, nibbling nervously at the tip of an elegantly painted claw. “Are you sure Katie?”

Katie nodded. “It’s meant to happen Remmy. I’ve seen the signs all day. I can help him better than most people on this planet, and I want to.”

Remado snuffed out his cigarette. “Very well. I’ll give him the go-ahead.”   
  
  


Rita was less than enthused, swearing a colorful streak as soon as she found out. She almost refused to let Katie take the meeting at all, but Katie insisted and eventually Rita was forced to relent. The month it took for the ship to travel from Alternia was nerve wracking, the entire house full of tension and unease.

 

The night he was due to arrive Rita went to Katie one last time to try and talk her out of it.

“Nobody is forcing you to do this Katie.” Rita crossed her arms, giving Katie a hard look. “You can just turn around and walk away and nobody is going to think any less of you.”

Katie sat at her vanity mirror, staring at her own reflection as she threaded tiny amethyst earrings into her ears.  _ Amethyst helps with spiritual intuition and calmness always wear them before an important undertaking _ . She could practically hear her mother say. It was one of those things left over from her mother that both comforted and saddened her at the same time.

Katie looked past her own reflection, staring at Rita where the other woman was leaning against the doorway. “I’ll be ok Rita. This was supposed to happen.”

Rita sighed, knocking her head back against the wood. “Just… I’ll let you make your own choices, but I’m taking the other girls out of the house for the night, there’s no reason to put everyone at risk. Remado is going to stay and make sure nothing goes wrong.”

Katie nodded “I understand.”

Rita stood straight then, walking over to her and giving the other girl a hug. She leaned back, running a hand through Katie’s hair. “We’ll be less than five minutes away if we need us, Remado will be in the next room, the landline in your room is dialed to 91, you just need to press the last 1 and-”

Katie leaned back with a smile, thunking her head into Rita’s stomach. “Thank you Rita.”

Rita smiled sadly. “Anytime, kiddo.”   
  
  


Remado sat in the living room, chain-smoking one redherb cigarette after another, dark circles under his eyes. Katie descended the stairs, wearing a gauzy pale-pink dress, tiny white birds circling the hem.

“Remado?” Katie tiptoed into the room “Are you ok?”

Remado sighed out a shaky breath. “I just…” He shook his head, looking up at Katie “We’ve… us who were in the church… we’ve done terrible things and I-” Tears beaded in the corners of his eyes as he pressed a hand over his mouth. “I don’t know what I would do if anything happened to any of you.”

Katie hugged him, brushing a hand down his long braided hair. “Nothing is going to happen to me Remmy.”

Remado swallowed, scrubbing at his cheek. “You’re all better than I deserve.”

“Nobody gets what they ‘deserve’ in this world…” Katie whispered. “For better or worse we just to make do with what we get.”

The doorbell rang and Remado stiffened. The world paused for a moment, coalescing around the heavy shadow on their porch.

 

“That’s him.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys! Sorry I couldn't finish the whole thing in the "15 days" time allotment I give myself for writing updates, but there is a lot here and I hope you won't mind if this story is split into parts, there will be a LOT to process so giving you guys time to digest a piece is probably for the best.
> 
> I got a new job working as a proofreader for a game development company so I might not have as much time as I used to when it comes to making content. Sorry about that!


	3. How do you solve a problem like a murder clown?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We meet Titius, he's stupid, giant and awful and I love him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys! I was writing the update for this fic and I got to this point and I was like damn. This EMOTIONALLY feels like a chapter. A lot of stuff happens, and right after there is a perspective change as we go from one character to the other! It's a chapter! I know I was only going to have this fic be three chapters long but what can I say? A chapter happened right under my hands without my EXPRESS PERMISSION.
> 
> At least this way you can get used to Titius, our other lead in this storyline before we get to the EMOTIONAL TRAINWRECK.
> 
> So here ya go! Some FLUFF!

Katie turned and started to pad towards the door. “I’ll get it.”

“No!” Remado grabbed her arm, anchoring her there with a serious look. “Just… let me.”

Katie nodded, tiptoeing down the hall and climbing halfway up the stairs. She sat on the middle step, playing with the hem of her dress as she watched the door.

Remado let out a shaky breath. “Oh for the love of the empire…” He hissed quietly, stuck in the space between Katie sitting tiny and blameless on the stairs and the shadowed behemoth on their front porch like a moth in a web... or perhaps more like a bystander watching a rabbit about to be hit by a truck. “This is such a bad idea…”

Remado closed his eyes, opening the door like pulling off a bandaid, as if like doing it quicker would make the whole night end sooner. As soon as the door was open he was suddenly overtaken by what seemed like a mountain of scarred grey flesh and shaggy black hair. Remado yelped as he was lifted off the ground.

There was an odd crack and Katie realized that the other troll hit his head on the doorframe as he tried to shimmy his way into the entryway obviously not meant for his size, cracking the trim and ripping through the plaster of the wall.

Katie gave their visitor a good look-over. While Remado was seven feet tall, this troll was at least two-feet taller than him, hunched awkwardly so that they could fit in the room. He had a bit of an underbite, long tusks curling past his teeth on a savage-looking face, scars raking down a strong jaw that looked like it could grind flour. He wore a torn purple top and black pants that probably fit him once, but now vaguely resembled a crop top and capris. A necklace of bone clacked together hollowly where they hung low on his neck.

Remado coughed, shaking the spray of plaster dust from his face. “Titius!” He chastised. “You broke my fucking wall!”

The three of them looked back at where he had practically cracked the doorway in half. The one hinge that had survived Titius’ entrance creaked slightly before giving away entirely, the door falling to the porch behind it with a loud crack, plaster dust still in the air.

The behemoth lifted up his shaggy bangs, exposing one purple eye to get a better look at the damage. He winced. “Fuck.”

Katie cocked her head, surveying the damage from her point on the stairs. The place where Titius had broken the doorway formed the sign of the arch while the plaster pieces spread around formed the sign of the ants.

And in the center of it, like the eye of the storm, was Titius.

“A journey with difficulties,” Katie whispered, kicking a piece of plaster off the stairs where it had fallen with the toe of her slipper “...a journey with difficulties.”

Remado looked even more concerned than he had before. He was watching the broad shape of Titius’ plaster-covered shoulders in a way that Katie guessed meant that Titius wasn’t QUITE so large the last time Remado had seen him. She supposed it would be up to her to continue from here, or else Remado might change his mind in all of this.

It was sweet… the way Remado worried about all of them, about Katie too, but sometimes people worrying about her without her consent could get tiring. As if she was a thin-skinned balloon and the entire world was a needle. She could see what was happening though, the pieces of the puzzle that she had found along the way for weeks were clarifying and she could put it together if they would only let her.

“Hello,” Katie stood up where she was on the stairs, even standing halfway up the steps she was only barely taller than Titius. “My name is Katie.”

Titius straightened his back, erasing that small height difference. Katie looked up at him, minuscule and blameless, and for a moment it seemed like a scene out of a fairy tale. Katie playing the part of the tiny maiden sacrificed to some monstrous horror to appease its appetite, helpless and in need of a knight. Ann Darrow, the helpless screaming actress in the paws of the mighty King Kong.

Though Katie didn’t look like she was afraid, she cocked her head, letting pale blonde hair fall into her face as he regarded her in turn.

“Holy shit.” His voice was a low, deep growl that reverberated in an odd alien way in his chest.

A massive hand wrapped around Katie’s middle and she was lifted into the air towards him.

For all the massive former-subjugglator’s intimidating visage, he looked like a kindergartener girl who had just been presented with a new Barbie. “REMADO!” He shouted, a giant toothy grin on his face. Katie couldn’t help but squeak as she was shaken back and forth. “REMADO SHE’S SO FUCKING TINY!”

Plaster dust from where the troll had halfway broken through the wall wafted over to Katie who sneezed.

Titius gaped, putting a hand to his heart and turning towards Remado. “REMADO.”

Remado had his hands up, like an animal control office facing a giant rabid raccoon. “She’s not a doll Titius you have to be careful with her! You could break her!”

Titius looked hurt for a moment before his lips curled up in a snarl, he roared, loud enough that it made Katie put her hands over her ears. “I’M NOT GOING TO FUCKING HURT HER!”

Remado growled back and, arching his finger to display his claws, his lips curling back in a snarl and-

Katie tapped Titius’s forearm. The troll turned his attention from Remado to her, one purple eye peeking out of the mass of fluffy black hair and his ears swiveling towards her.

“Excuse me.” Katie spoke softly, rubbing her ears. “Can I be let down now?”

That one took Titius a moment to process, the one purple eye flicking over her features warily before he gave her a slight nod and put her back down on the stairs.

“Thank you!” Katie chirped, smoothing down her dress. “I know you were excited, but can you please ask next time?”

Remado gave her a disbelieving look at the words ‘Next time’, throwing up a manicured hand in exasperation. “Katie!” He hissed admonishingly under his breath.

Titius nodded slowly, as if the thought of asking genuinely never occurred to him. “...yeah…”

Katie smiled, her hands clasped together. “Thank you!”

Titius it seems didn’t know how to respond to that one, his hands curling inwards towards his chest away from her, his ears flicked back.

Katie put a tiny hand on his forearm. “Come on,” she motioned up the stairs. “You have plaster dust all over you.”

Titius looked down at his shirt as if he just noticed that.

“Come on,” Katie cajoled quietly, half turning to walk up the stairs. “The bathroom is at the top.”

Remado gave her a look, wide-eyed and breathing heavily. He smoothed back his hair and glared at Titius’ back. “I’ll be down here if you need me.” 

Katie couldn’t gauge Titius’ expression with his hair in his face like that, but she didn’t miss the way his shoulders had stiffened. 

Katie nodded back at Remado, urging Titius up the stairs. “We’ll be ok.”

 

 

 

The process of getting Titus into the bathroom was… an eventful one. After some unsuccessful first attempts, she managed to get him in here by having him sit down and scoot in on his butt. At one point he accidentally hooked the shower curtain with a horn, which had caused him to panic, jerking his head and tearing it from the wall.

Katie brushed off the sheet of Hello Kitty themed plastic. “Thank goodness it was just a pop-in shower rod.”

Titius grimaced, hunching his shoulders slightly. “....sorry.”

“That’s ok,” Katie folded the shower curtain and put it to the side. “It makes things easier if it’s gone anyways.”

Katie wet a washcloth, stepping on top of the toilet so she could be level with the sitting Titius. “You have plaster dust on your face,” she explained.

Titius winced away from her incoming hand at first, but Katie just dabbed him lightly with the cloth.

“Sorry, I don’t mean to but your face paint is gonna be smudged a bit,” Katie whispered, watching the way his ears swiveled towards her as she talked. “But there really isn’t a way around that.”

She lifted his hair out of the way, his eyes watching her warily. She had seen pictures of trolls in face paint before, the subjuggulators, so she knew the basic concept, but it was different seeing it in person. Titius’ face paint around his mouth was in the shape of a jagged-toothed frown, it looked like it was screaming or crying out in pain. The eyes were outlined in vague blobs and a line trailed from them to the sides of his chin.

His hair fell back into his face and Katie brushed it back peevishly. “Doesn’t it bother you to have your hair in your face like that?”

Titius seemed to be startled from some sort of revelry. “...yeah.”

“Hang on,” Katie stepped down from the toilet and to the vanity, opening a drawer and rooting through it. “I have a clip in here somewhere.” She found her clip and clambered back onto the toilet, straining to reach the top of his head. She gathered up his bangs and clipped them back to the top of his head with her pink butterfly clip, the ends of his hair standing up in an odd miniature ponytail.

“There,” Katie patted the little poof made from clipping his bangs up, noticing unfortunately that his hair was severely greasy. “It’s out of your face now at least.”

Titius tried to look up at the the poof on the top of his head, but only managed to sway it back and forth.

Katie frowned at the white-grey powder and pieces of drywall stuck in his greasy hair after having smashing his face through the wall. “Is it… is it ok if I wash your hair?” She cocked her head. “You still have chunks of wall in there.”

Titius shrugged, refusing to look up at her. Sitting on the floor with the barrette in his hair he looked like a giant grumpy child.

Katie stepped delicately to the edge of the tub. “Come on,” She motioned vaguely with her hand, lean over so I can get the showerhead over you.”

Titius grumbled, but did as he was told, leaning over slightly so that the front half of his body was over the tub, his hair closer to Katie.

“Thank you!” Katie smiled at him and he averted his eyes grouchily. Katie looked through the bottles in the shower. “...I think I’m going to use Lorraine’s shampoo… She needs less of it now anyways after the prank Helen pulled on her.”

She turned on the showerhead, the water soaking through his hair and dribbling down the sides of his face. She dumped half of the shampoo bottle on his head, noting that it smelled like coconut. She started to massage the shampoo into his hair, being careful not to touch his horns. Titius was being incredibly open with her right now, but most trolls wouldn’t trust a stranger to have their horns in their hands.

As she massaged the suds into his hair Titius seemed to waver sleepily, swaying back and forth slightly. Katie tried to steady him with a hand but his face swayed forward into her belly, almost knocking her off the ledge of the tub. She squeaked, looking down at him with surprise before a couple of things clicked together in her mind.

The sleepiness, the uncoordination, the moodiness, the openness, the fact that he slammed his face through a wall and hardly noticed…

“Titius?” Katie looked down at him, hand at the top of his head as he began to purr into her stomach “Are you high right now?”

Titius looked up at her, a dazed look in his eyes, and Katie was convinced she was right. He looked so similar not to those old photos of Remado back when he was still in the church, the glazed over eyes, the paleness of his skin, the messy hair, like a mugshot of a club kid that had been arrested for drug use.

“Yeah,” Titius’ brows quirked up, as if that little fact should have been obvious, hand fluttering up as if to illustrate. “High as a fuckin’ kite sis.”

Katie cocked her head and looked down at him. “Why?”

“People like it better when I’m high,” There was a slight bitter tone to the slow dreaminess of his speech. “If they know I ain’t thinkin good they know I won’t get angry. Otherwise they’re all… like lil’ squeakbeasts, all fuckin small and meek and watchin me like I’m some kind of fuckin… fuckin…”

Katie was trying her best to smooth out a particularly bad tangle, working a comb through the rough hair. She paused, following his disjointed logic. “Like a cat?”

Titius growled, his ears flicking back. “The FUCK is a cat?”

Katie frowned, trying to remember what Remado had called it when he first came here.

“A meowbeast,” Katie leaned down to explain, brushing back some of his hair. “And the squeakbeasts are all afraid that the meowbeast will gobble them up.”

Titius smiled slowly. “Yeah. That’s the shit I mean.” He tapped the side of his head with a clawed finger. “Cept’ when I’m up and high and shit. Then people up and figure that the… the CAT is a asleep ya feel me?”

“It’s the only time they bother to talk to me…” Titius murmured as Katie continued to work on his hair, dabbing conditioner onto a particularly bad snarl to try and loosen it up. “When I’m high they may treat me like I’m stupid, and some of em’ might be laughin’ but at least they isn’t-”

“Treating you like a cat.” Katie finished for him knowingly. “I understand.”

“I thought it would be different here...” Titius grumbled, leaning into her hands. “Ain’t anyone here supposed to know me… ain’t supposed to know what I am but I got off the fuckin’ ship and they all stared at me the same… All of em’ cepts you like scared little… little SQUEAKBEASTS an’ shit…”

“You’re just big is all…” Katie frowned, trying to extricate her fingers from what she saw was a severely matted piece of hair. “Oh darn…” She whispered. “I think I might have to cut this.” She stepped down from edge of the tub and began to pick her way through the shelf above the sink, through cups full of toothbrushes and mascara wands before she found it. 

“Ah ha!” Katie held up a pair of child’s safety scissors, the hands of which were made to look like a pair of bunny ears, the face of the bunny at the joint between the blades. “Found it!”

The blades of which, were unfortunately pointed towards Titius.

Titius growled, hips lips curling into a snarl and his ears flicking back.

“Don’t worry!” Katie smiled, flipping the scissors around so that the handle now faced towards him. “They’re safety scissors! I couldn’t hurt you with these if I tried. See for yourself!”

She handed Titius the scissors, the tiny bunny-themed scissors dwarfed hilariously in his massive hands. Katie climbed back onto the edge of the tub as he examined them.

“Don’t be scared. I’ll keep as much of the hair as I can,” Katie explained, but this hard chunk right here needs to be cut out, it’s too matted.” She held her hands out for the scissors.

Titius handed them back to her, grumbling slightly under his breath. “I wasn’t scared.”

“Uh huh.” Katie answered back, sawing the little bunny scissors through a chunk of matted hair and letting it fall to the tub. 

Titius grumbled, putting one massive hand on her hip and letting his face rest moodily on the other side of her as she continued to cut off matted chunks of hair and let them fall into the tub.

“You should be,” He muttered, a grim twist to his lips.

Katie watched the pink butterfly clip bounce back and forth where she had put it on the top of his head as he said this. “Ok.”

Titius reared up, his teeth on display as he snarled cruelly. He snapped his teeth, the sharp crocodile-like teeth making an audible  _ snik  _ as he growled. “Don’t you know that I could KILL you?”

Katie shrugged, putting a hand on his chin and closing his mouth for him, his eyes going wide and dumbfounded as she did. She went back to snipping at a chunk of matted hair. 

“Well of course you  _ could _ .” she scoffed, waving the bunny scissors as she spoke. “I weigh one hundred pounds soaking wet, a dog could kill me, a child could kill me, a particularly determined duck could kill me. You’re not really special in that regard.”

Titius looked up at her in dismay, his snarl falling from his lips. There was a tense moment as the both of them stared at each other and-

“Fuck.” He whispered, putting his other hand on her hip, his fingers winding all the way across her middle. He stayed that way for a moment, his eyes averted from her’s.

He looked up suddenly, purple tears beading in his eyes. “YOU’RE TOO FUCKING SMALL.”

Katie’s lips were set to a wry line. “Gee, thanks.”

“I’M SERIOUS!” His ears flicked back, his eyes wide to a near panic. “YOU’RE TOO FUCKING SMALL! WHO THE FUCK LET YOU OUTSIDE?”

“The FBI…” Katie answered back absently, letting another chunk of hair fall into the tub.

“I gotta…” He murmured to himself, measuring how thin she was with both of his hands around her middle with an increasing sort of panic, a chittering whine low in his throat. “I gotta like… put ya in a box of somethin’... Wrap ya in bubble wrap and… and… Put you high on a shelf where ain’t nobody gonna get their mitts on ya and break ya.”

“Your mitts are on me and I’m not broken yet.” Katie pointed out in what she had hoped was a humorous way.

It seemed though that she had failed to be funny though, because Titius’s hands flew to his sides, pressing them to the tub, his eyes going wide and frightened.

“It’s ok…” Katie frowned, wondering where she had gone wrong. She reached out for him and he pressed himself more fully in the corner between the bathtub and the wall. “...I didn’t mind your mitts on me, it’s ok...”

Titius looked up at her with wide eyes, before screwing them shut and shaking his head violently. “I ain’t… I ain’t…” He pressed his hands to his chest, his nose crinkled “I ain’t good at not breakin’ shit.”

“I’m not a balloon,” Katie chastised him softly. “You can be gentle.”

Titius’ hands rose into the air, shaking slightly, he looked up at her and she nodded. His hands framed her hips and Katie could tell he was concentrating on making sure he put the least amount of pressure possible.

“See…” Katie reached down to pat one of his enormous hands. “Gentle.”

Titius nodded slightly, staring down at his hands with terrified concentration, his tongue peeking out from between his teeth. 

Katie laughed at the look on his face. “There you go!”

Titius looked up at her, his head cocked as she ran a comb through his hair. “Why...Why are you being so nice to me?”

Katie looked down at him, her expression solemn. “Because I get it.”

Titius growled. “You fuckin’  _ don’t _ .”

Katie gave him a chaste kiss to his forehead. “I do. I unfortunately really, really  _ do _ ...” She smoothed back his bangs and clipped the butterfly clip to the top of it. “And I’ll tell you all about it when you can actually remember it.” She leaned back so that she could look into his eyes. “Afterall I haven’t really met  _ you _ yet.” 

Titius looked up at her, his head cocked. “I’m here.”

Katie put a fingertip to his forehead. “Not all of you. Not really. When you’re high like this it’s… it’s… This is more of… an extreme version of you, distorted and fuzzy around the edges. I want to meet the real you.”

Titius growled under his breath, pouting up at her like a petulant child. “People don’t like me when I’m not high.”

Katie smiled, cocking her head and brushing her hair out of her face. “I think I’ll like you just fine.”

  
  
  


Titius left soon after that, stumbling down the stairs, past an irate Remado, through the smashed door and into the warm Texas night. He dreamily passed a terrified front desk worker and to his hotel room, curling awkwardly onto a too-small bed. He stared at the ceiling, his hair soft and smelling like coconut, a little pink butterfly clip holding his bangs out of the way. He could feel the last of his high fade away as he drifted off to sleep. He dreamt of rabbits, small hands, and a voice like birdsong.

  
  
  


Katie stared down at the chunks of matted hair in the bathtub, she cocked her head reading the signs as they came to her. She could hear the front door open and a voice calling out for her.

“Katie?” A girl with a pixie haircut opened the door to the bathroom. “Rita asked me to check on- WHAT THE FUCK HAPPENED IN HERE?”

Katie looked up at her then from where she was standing in the middle of the bathtub, a cloud of black matted hair drifting like clouds around her ankles.

“Hi Lorraine.” Katie greeted, looking back down to the hair. 

Lorraine stepped cautiously into the bathroom, taking in the piles of hair, the missing shower curtain and the fresh gash in the drywall from where Titius had slipped, his horn gouging the paint. Katie’s dress was smudged with what looked like face paint and purple tears.

“So…” Lorraine wrung her hands nervously, trying to make sense of the scene. “It went well? It’s.. It’s over?”

Katie hunched over, staring at a chunk of hair critically. “Yes and no.”

Lorraine frowned. “What do you mean yes and no?”

Katie didn’t look up from the hair, she held out a finger, tracing their shapes. “Yes it went well. No it’s not over.”

Lorraine sighed, after living with Katie for as long as she had she knew better than to ask but she did anyways. “How do you know?”

“The sign of the chain, a chain of events, not just  _ one _ … and the sign of the boat, a new friend will come to visit. Again, I suppose.”

Katie stepped out of the cloud of hair, deep in thought as she walked to the door. She paused next to where Lorraine still stood confused and horrified. 

“Also I used all of your shampoo,” Katie winced. “Sorry.”


	4. Ducks and Star People

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The thrilling conclusion of the Tea Leaves arc. 
> 
> Titius knows he's not... worth this... It's like he's miscast in a role where someone good and worthwhile is supposed to be there instead of whatever... he is.... and that if he keeps this up he knows he's going to mess this up or she'll figure out what he really is ans what that MEANS... But try as he might he just can't stay away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys! Sorry this took so long to get out. I've been really sick lately and uh... oofta this is longer than I thought it would be.... I think I might to add the previous chapter to the first one to try and even it out a tad- WHOOPS

Titius woke up the next morning sore from sleeping on the too-small mattress, a headache blooming at the base of his horns as he came down from the sopor high.

“Why the fuck…” Titius grumbled, voice rough with sleep, a tiny pink butterfly clip that had been holding his bangs up was now bobbing precariously in front of his face. He took a deep sniff of his hair and glared at it suspiciously. “...do I smell fucking delicious?”

There was a dull knocking, the sound like an icepick to his post-high mind. He growled, shoving one of the too-small pillows over his head to try and muffle the sound. When the knocking continued he felt a sharp crackle of rage, his talons ripping into the bedding. He jumped up from the bed and thundered towards the door.

A maid knocked on the other side of the door. She sighed, looking down into her cart and wishing this fucker could get out of the room already so she could clean it and end her shift. “Hello? Sir? This is your check-out time and-”

The door suddenly flung open, a very large troll was squatting awkwardly in the doorway so that he could stick his head through, his lips curled into a snarl as he growled. The effect however, was somewhat ruined by the fact that there was a tiny pink butterfly clip in his hair.

“FUCK OFF WITH THE GODDAMN KNOCKING!” He bellowed, the pink butterfly moving as he screamed.

He slammed the door on the maid’s face, something tiny and pink falling as he did, the maid catching it on instinct.

The door opened again and Titius snatched the little clip from her hands. “Hang on, that’s mine...” she grumbled before slamming the door in her face a second time.

The maid threw up her hands in exasperation, huffing as she wheeled her cart away from the door. She was not getting paid enough for this.

Titius sat on the other side of the door, examining the little pink butterfly clip, holding it delicately between two talons.

He remembered… Green eyes… And hair that was almost lusus-white.

_ Doesn’t it bother you?-  _ Something impossibly small and delicate had asked him, voice like birdsong and a touch softer than anything he had ever allowed himself to have before - _ to have your hair in your face like that? _

And there had been a tiny little laugh, like windchimes, her hair haloed in light as he felt her gather his hair and clip it away from his face. - _ It’s out of your face now at least. _

And then there was the same sort of odd sweet smell that was still clinging to his hair.

_See-_ She had said, and he could feel the smallness of her between his hands, cupping slender hips as she worked her hands through his hair - _gentle…_

He looked down at his hands, bringing them into the rough shape of her he remembers holding in his hands and scoffing. Not even humans get that small, how fucking high had he  _ been _ ?

He remembers…

Her holding up a pair of scissors she he knows… he knows... knows  _ now _ would be harmless but he can never seem to get it right when he’s high, knowing what’s a threat and what isn’t, some of the other initiates had uses scissors sometimes when they were in a pinch anyways and-

_ Don’t be scared _ She had whispered, but he had, he had anyways and-

_ She was so small, too small, so fucking fragile in his hands and he had leaned up, his teeth close to her face and- _

_ Don’t you know I could KILL YOU? _

He didn’t. He didn’t! He DIDN’T!

..

Did he?

Now Titius was hyperventilating in his hotel room, a pink butterfly clip in his hands. He felt like he was going to throw up, from both coming down from his high and from… from…

The pulled out his phone with shaking hands, pulling up the messaging app. He read through some of the texts he had apparently sent while he was high the previous night.

[2:21 AM]

KAM: Hey buddy, how’s YOUR trip at the whorehouse GOING?

TIT: SHEEEEEEWSSS SOOOOO SMOOOLLLLLLLLLLLP

KAM: LOL what?

TIT: HER HANFDSSS!!! tHEtREW SOOO SSSSMAAAAAALLLLLLLLLLK!

TIT: SHE”S SO LIttLE IM CRYINPK

TIT: HOOWS SHESD SOOI SMALLK?

TIT: I SMELLP LIKE FROOt

KAM: Alright BUDDY whatever you say. Just remember to WRAP it before you TAP it, you don’t know what the FUCK kind of DISEASES aliens carry.

 

Titius winced. He hadn’t told Kamera it was a pale brothel that Remado had started up. Kam wouldn’t have… wouldn’t have understood, it was just that Titius wanted...well... He held the little pink clip in his hands and began to type.

[Just now!]

TIT: KAM ARE YOU THERE?

He saw as Kamera began to reply, the little dots in the text bubble as the other troll typed.

 

KAM: Yeah BUDDY I’m here. So how’d it GO? Congrats on the bragging RIGHTS of being the first one to fuck a HUMAN in the friend group.

KAM: We’re all very PROUD.

KAM: So tell ME about IT! 

KAM: Is their JUNK weird?

KAM: I HEAR they have like… EGGS inside them or something?

KAM: Did you find one of THOSE? What did it look like?

TIT: I MESSED UP

TIT: I MESSED UP BAD

 

Titius had his shoulders hunched, tears streaming down his face as he held the little clip.  
  


KAM: What? What HAPPENED?

TIT: I DON’T KNOW! I WAS HIGH AND I-

TIT: I REMEMBER GETTING MAD AND I SAID SOMETHING ABOUT HOW I COULD KILL HER AND-

TIT: I DON’T REMEMBER WHAT HAPPENED NEXT!

KAM: Lol WHOOPS.

KAM: You TOTALLY killed her

KAM: LMAO

KAM: Party FOUL

KAM: Ask Remado how much one of those pink SHITS cost and REIMBURSE him.

KAM: Anywho, did you at least TAP it before or at least LIKE… during the part where they died? Come ON don’t leave a PAL hanging!

Titius held the little butterfly clip in his hand, horror dawning over him. Fuck fuck fuck he really did didn’t he? He didn’t mean to! She had been so nice and it wasn’t her fault! She didn’t know what he was! She didn’t know enough to be afraid! He felt sick to his stomach. He should have never have come here to this little innocent planet. He knew what he WAS and he came here anyways, endangering all of them and something small and fragile and innocent had paid the price for his weakness.

Titius didn’t see that last message though through his tears. He curled in on himself, sobbing like a wriggler as he held the little pink clip as delicately as he could in his hands.

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry! I’m so sorry!"

He felt like he was seven and a half sweeps again, a new initiate in the church, hyperventilating in the dorms as he stared down at his hands, brown stains on his fingers, dripping down onto his pants as he cried.

His roomate had come in then, swaying slightly with drunkeness, two bottles of soda in their hands. He was older than Titius, but Titius was far taller than him, even after only going through his first molt. The other troll had short shaggy hair, a brightness to their eyes and a litany of scars on their slender arms. He had introduced himself as Kamera when Titius first met him, being pushed into the room with his duffle bag on his first day. 

“Here,” Kamera pushed one of the bottles into his hands. The brown blood on Titius’ fingers smudged the label. “Drink.”

Titius drank.

“I was overwhelmed my first time too,” Kamera flicked the top off their bottle and took a long swig, slapping a hand across Titius’ shoulders with a certain sort of camaraderie. “You get used to it.”

Titius’ hands were shaking, purple splattered onto his fingers and he realized he was crying. “H-how? How do you get used to it? He looked… He looked so scared and-”

Kamera rolled their eyes. “They were a brownblood, right?”

Titius nodded shakily. 

Kamera shrugged. “So they had like what… 10, 20 years left?” He threw up a hand “And all that time they were going to go around being terrible and sucking up resources that they don’t deserve, and for what?” They gestured roughly with their bottle, splashing pale fluid across the floor. “They were going to die  _ anyways _ ! Either from their natural lifespan that is  _ barely _ longer than a fucking fruit fly’s, or else someone else would have found out how terrible they were and they wouldn’t have been as _ nice _ as  _ you _ were about it.”

Titius looked down into the bottle in his hands. “What do you mean?”

“Killing him in one hit? Instead of killing him slowly like sickness or a troll with a grudge?” Kamera spread their arms wide. “What you did was a  _ mercy _ .”

Titius frowned, looking away. “...The church don’t… They don’t always kill them... quickly.”

Kamera scoffed, going back to their bottle with the air of finality. “Only when they deserve it!”

Titius growled, frustrated under his breath. “But-”

Kamera dropped low to a squat in front of Titius. “The Merciful Messiahs guide our hands! We cannot do what is beyond _ their _ will! It’s all for the greater good! The betterment of the species!”

Titius looked away. “Yeah but-”

Kamera growled. “Are you saying that _ you _ know better than the  _ Merciful Messiahs _ ? That  _ you _ ’re  _ smarter _ than  _ them _ ?  _ Wiser _ ? Do you  _ dare _ put yourself  _ above _ the  _ gods _ ?”

Titius flinched at the implied heresy. “No I-”

Kamera grinned, slow and wide, their eyes half-lidded and sleepy. “Then relax dude! It’s all a part of their plan, all of it for the good of everyone! That stupid fucking brownblood became a part of something much greater than all of us. You don’t have to worry about it because the Merciful Messiahs in their great wisdom are guiding our hands in their name.”

Titius swallowed a mouthful of soda, the sugar in the drink putting a blissful haze over his mind. It… It all made sense right? Everything that Kamera was talking about? It made… It made sense…

“So all you gotta worry about…” Kamera cooed lowly, brushing a piece of hair out of Titius’s eyes. “Is celebrating a job well done.”

Titius swallowed, nodding vaguely.

“Hey,” Kamera tipped up his chin to look into his eyes “Don’t worry about it ok? I can help you learn the ropes. We’ll look after each other? Ok?”

Titius nodded gratefully. “Ok.”  
  
  


 

Now though Titius was curled around a tiny pink hair clip and crying because he had been trying so hard not to be the thing that he was. When the new empress had disbanded the church it was like waking up from a dream. Horror dawning on him when the church’s doors were closed and the rituals stopped, and the planet wasn’t overtaken by a horrible hungry darkness, the kind that they had told them all about since the time they were first told exactly what they were as trolls, their place on the hemospectrum and what that  _ meant _ . 

They had told them that to be a subjugglator was to bring order to chaos, keep back the darkness and the destruction of their species with the strategic letting of blood, the sacrificing of the weak into the arms of the Merciful Messiahs so that the strong could live.

But it was all just a  _ fucking lie _ wasn’t it?

They weren’t priests and protectors, they were thugs and murderers!

And for all that time Titius had believed them, had let them convince him because the alternative was too awful to contemplate. He had borne the weight of his station with the air of a man who had a dirty but necessary job to do. Like the neighborhood garbage man, like the veterinarian who put dying and in pain animals to sleep in an act of mercy...

like the hunter who shot the pretty brown-eyed hoofbeast in the woods, saw it struggle and bleed as they walked up to it, saw the fear in its eyes as he took out his knife and finished the job as quickly as he could, pushing the blade deeper into an innocent throat so that the rest of the village could eat.

The leader of their faction, a troll older than any of them thought subjuggulators could really get,  liked telling new recruits that story the best. Sometimes they would have the foolish and sentimental hunter let the beast go, only for the hunter to go back to their village and watch all the people there die. It was supposed to be a metaphor for their work, the spilling of blood for the good of others. The village stood for the rest of the planet, people who didn’t like the blood on the hunter’s hands, but who survived the winter due to their work. 

And they knew that the hoofbeast wasn’t really a hoofbeast, not when the faction leader would sometimes slip up when drunk, telling them about how the hoofbeast had begged, or how their hands had clawed desperately against the hunter’s around their throat but-

It got the point across just the same. Accepting one small horror made the listener more able to accept something worse and worse until it was amazing what kind of stories they would have nodded along to, what kind of horrors they accepted as needed and justified.

The drugs helped dull the pain of it of course, helped keep the doubt from wriggling it’s little fingers into their brains, helped keep them from thinking of the screaming. All the drugs you could ever want and still so many of them… so many of them had still…

Well there was a reason the church was so “exclusive”....

Nobody liked to talk about it outside the church, liked to say they were culled for incompetence and in a metaphorical way the elders said it was the truth because-

Because what kind of troll, what kind of subjugglator, can’t sleep at night after serving the  _ Mirthful Messiahs _ ? Can’t look at themselves in the mirror after a night of _ joyous _ and  _ righteous  _ bloodletting? What kind of subjugglator can’t take the  _ necessary slaughter  _ of ~~their own kind~~ the lesser classes and take a blade to their own throat and-

The elders had called them cowards but… Titius knew better now…

He had done what they told him, and the worst part of it was... that sometimes he had even enjoyed it. The satisfaction of performing well under the eyes of a supervisor, of doing something that he wanted so badly to believe was good, to be a part of something that was bigger than himself.

But then the Church was disbanded, the world didn’t end, and the dream dissipated around him like smoke. He was forced to accept the reality of what he really was then.

Trolls would look at him with such fear in their eyes and they were right! They were right to look at him like that! He was a monster and he never wanted any of this. So he did what he had always done before, and he took the drugs so he wouldn’t have to think about it and now-

He looked down at the tiny pink clip in his hands. 

Now the only thing that had actually, really been kind to him since his lusus, was dead and it was all his fault. He got weak and he wanted too much, wanted things that he wasn’t allowed to have (and for good reason!) and the monster in him saw it and gobbled her up. And she would be alive if he had just kept his hands to himself because he knew, he knew that he ruined everything he touched, anything he dared to want, but he came here anyways...

Titius sniffed and wiped his face with the back of his hand, knowing that he was likely rubbing off most of his face paint but not caring.

Kam was right though he guessed.. He should… fuck he should apologize to Remado and maybe… fuck he should pay him back for the… for the…

Titius looked at the tiny pink hair clip, turning it over in his claws he wondered who she had been.

He pulled himself off the floor of the hotel room, sick to his stomach but determined anyways. He slammed the door shut, trying his best not to his his horns on the ceiling as he left, throwing a stack of human currency at a confused and terrified front desk worker as he went.

 

 

 

It was about mid-day when he made it back to the address that Remado had sent him all that time ago. Remado was on the front porch, tools scattered around on the picnic table outside and a smear of plaster on his cheek.

When he sheepishly made his way onto the porch Remado turned away from his work, fury in his eyes.

“You ASSHOLE!” Remado threw a trowel of wet plaster at Titius. Titius was quicker when he wasn’t high though and so was able to dodge it, the sloppy projectile flying past his shoulder and into the front yard. 

Titius winced, teeth bared in a grimace as he told himself not to cry. “I know! I know! Remado I-”

“LOOK!” Remado threw up his hands, gesturing angrily at a hole above the doorway. The gap in the drywall looked a bit like-

“IT’S YOUR FUCKING FACE!” Remado scoffed. “YOU SMASHED YOUR GIANT FUCKING FACE THROUGH MY WALL AND LOOK AT IT NOW! IT HAS AN IDIOT-SHAPED HOLE IN IT!”

Titius stared, recognizing the shape of his horns but that couldn’t really be what Remado was mad abo-

Remado had his manicured hands on his hips and his lipsticked mouth pursed. “SO WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU HAVE TO SAY FOR YOURSELF?”

Titius growled. “OH FUCK YOU!” He loomed over Remado, his teeth bared. “ARE YOU SERIOUSLY WORRIED ABOUT YOUR FUCKING WALL RIGHT NOW WHEN I-”

Katie stepped into the doorway, framed by the silhouette of Titius that he had left in the wall. She was wearing a pale green dress with little blue flowers on the hem, a large white sunhat, yellow galoshes and a yellow shoulder bag.

Katie smiled up at Titius. “Oh! I thought you would be back again!”

Titius’ eyes were wide, his ears flicked back. “You’re-”

(Alive?)

Katie smiled crookedly. “Very small?” She supplied, a hand to her mouth as she giggled. “Yes you told me so many times last night.”

Titius stared down at her, completely flabbergasted. “And you’re- you’re-”

“Just going to go feed the ducks!” Katie supplied again. She pulled a pair of large ziplock baggies and handed one to him. “Come on! You can help!”

Titius looked down at the baggie that had been thrust into his hands, certain that this was some kind of trick but not knowing how. He opened the bag to sniff it suspiciously.

Remado sighed, looking at Katie like a porcelain figure teetering at the edge of the shelf, a hand on his hip and spackle in his hair. “Just be careful ok.”

Katie walked past the both of them, her boots squeaking with each step. “Ducks aren’t going to carry me away, Remado.”

There was a half-remembered thought in Titius’s mind, Katie’s hands in her hair as she told him-

_ A very determined duck could kill me _

Titius paled.

...

What the FUCK was a duck?

“Well?” Katie stood in the middle of the walkway, looking up at Titius where he was still on the porch. “Are you coming or not?”

Titius paused, trying to picture what the hell a duck was and if it could  _ actually _ carry Katie away and eat her. “Uh…” He stared down at the tiny little human, her eyes wide and hopeful. Fuck he just learned she was alive and now she was going to be killed by ducks? (WHAT IS A DUCK ANYWAYS???) What the hell was up with this human? “Yes.” He answered back, mentally preparing to pull her out of the jaws of whatever a duck was (He was imagining something with a tusks and a long scaly tail).

Katie smiled. “Great! Let’s get going!”  
  
  


 

Katie walked down the sidewalk, past other residential homes, most of which were being occupied by University of Texas students. The sun shone through the trees, painting her and Titius in patterns of green and gold.

Katie looked back at the large troll. His hair was in his face again but at least he had managed not to mess it up too much since Katie last saw him. He had dark circles under his eyes and he seemed uneasy, but that was better than the glazed-over blandness from the night before. He glared down at the bag of duck food in his hands as if it was a bomb or a live viper. He leaned down to sniff the contents, immediately pulling a face.

Katie laughed and she noticed a flush of purple on his face before he moodily looked away.

“It’s just grapes and oats!” Katie informed him. “Promise!”

They came to the end of the cul de sac, a small fence in front of some sort of wooded area. A path had been worn into the dirt by countless visitors entering this way.

“Come on!” Katie struggled over the fence. She had to hop and scoot awkwardly to get a leg across, then balance herself and gently lower herself down onto the other side.

Titius stepped over.

Katie finally made it over the fence. “This way!” She motioned before trotting down the little path and disappearing into the trees.

Titius sighed. He was on an unfamiliar planet in the middle of nowhere and now he was about to follow an alien girl into the fucking woods. If Kam could see him now he would hit him over the head and tell him he was a dumbass.

The idea of her getting dragged off and eaten by ducks though (Maybe antlers? He still couldn’t picture what a duck was) made Titius take a deep breath and follow her into the underbrush.

Katie sat on a rock overlooking the pond, the area shaded with trees, water birds of every size crowded in around her, making insistent quacking and honking noises as she tossed the contents of her bag out bit by bit.

Titius paused, staring at the scene.

“Hi Titius!” Katie waved to him. “These are my ducks!”

Oh….

_ These _ were ducks….

Titius sat next to her on the rocks, looking down at the birds and the way they crowded around her suspiciously. Titius pointed a finger at a particularly large goose. “....I’m watching you so don’t get any FUCKING ideas aight?”

The goose nipped his finger.

“Ow!” Titius jerked his hand back. “Jerk!” He raised a fist at the goose which honked at him.

“Please don’t get into a fist fight with a duck,” Katie giggled.

Titius glared at the goose. “He started it.”

Katie laughed “They’re so used to being fed they think everything I have in my hands is edible. I lost one of my favorite chapsticks that way. Try giving them some of the duck food!”

Titius glared down into the ziplock bag. “...So why are we doing this again?”

Katie tossed out another handful. “I like ducks.”

Titius grimaced. “Why not just eat the food yourself?”

Katie blushed. “... Well sometimes I do eat some of the grapes out of it as I walk here. Don’t tell Rita she thinks it’s weird.” She picked a grape from bag and brushed off the oats that had stuck to it, popping it into her mouth and chewing. “They’re my darn oats and my darn grapes and I can eat my grapes out of my duck food if I want to darn it!”

Titius shook his head. “But if you didn’t feed the ducks you could eat  _ all _ of the grapes.”

Katie gave him a look. “I have plenty of grapes. I wanted to do something nice.”

Titius raised a hand. “They don’t even DO anything for you! Nobody is nice without like… expecting something back from it!”

Katie cocked her head “I do.”

Titius it seemed didn't know what to say to that, staring down at the bag on his lap as if it were responsible for all of this. Katie went back to feeding the ducks.

There was a long moment of silence and-

“Ok… how the fuck do I feed these assholes these goddamn grapes?” Titius grumbled.

Katie perked up. “Oh! You can either throw it out to them or you can cup some in your hands and hold it out for them.”

Titius picked a grape out of the bag and ate it, staring at that one specific goose the entire time as if to spite it. “GO GET IT YOU FEATHERED FUCKS!” He yelled as he took a handful of the food and tossed it as far as he could, ducks and geese chasing it out over the water.

Katie laughed, putting a hand to her mouth. “Titius!” She chastised “Be nice to the ducks!”

Titius sneered down at her. “I don’t want to be nice to the ducks.”

There was a tiny hand on his wrist and she smiled up at him and-

“Please be nice to the ducks?” She whispered.

Titius stared back, lip curled over savagely sharp teeth, a deep growl in his chest as he stared her down.

Katie only smiled sweeter.

Titius caved. He sighed. “Fine.”

Katie scooted closer to him on the rock. “Oh! Hold out your hands!”

Titius pulled his hands to his chest. “What! Why?”

Katie tugged on his wrists. “I’ll pour duck food into them and we can try and get them to eat out of your hands!”

Titius didn’t move as she unsuccessfully tried to tug his hands down. “No! That little fucker bit me!”

“Keep your hands flat and it will be ok!” Katie gazed up at him. 

Titius gave her a dirty look for a moment but quickly gave up. He sighed and held his hands flat. 

Katie leaned over and put some duck food in his hands. “Ok!” she grinned “Now just lower your hands to the water…”

Titius took a deep breath and obediently lowered his hands to the water.

“And stay calm!” Katie told him. “Ducks can tell whether you’re calm or not!” 

Titius’ shoulders hunched “You mean they can SMELL FEAR?”

The ducks that had been swimming closer to the feed in his hands quacked  in alarm and fled as he yelled.

Katie put a hand on his wrist. “No, it’s just you being nervous makes them nervous.”

Titius scowled. “Of fucking COURSE they’re nervous! I’m fucking a thousand times their size!”

Katie guided his hands back down to the water. “Well maybe at first, but then one of them will get brave and get close to you first, and then when the other ducks see they’ll feel safe enough to get close as well. You just have to let them see you be gentle.”

Titius gave her a disbelieving look.

“I promise!” Katie smiled, her hand tightening on his wrist for a moment. “Just try it!”

Titius growled to himself, closed his eyes and took a deep breath, willing himself to relax.

The ducks eyes him warily, quacking and chirping, swimming just out of arm’s reach.

Then one of the smaller ducks, something frail but extremely fuzzy looking swam closer than the rest of them, looking up at Titius and down at the food in his hands. It swam closer, then feinted, swimming farther away. It edged closer and closer and-

A tiny beak delicately took a grape from Titius’s hands.

It peeped up at him.

The rest of the ducks crowded in, snapping up oats and grapes from his hands as well. Other ducks fluttered in to sit on his lap or shoulders, quacking and squawking and generally being enthusiastic nuisances.

“See?” Katie smiled up at him, laughing as a duck clambered over her lap to get to Titius. “Gentle.”

Tears began to bead in Titius’ eyes and he didn’t know why. He pulled a hand up from where a duck had sat smugly in the crook of his elbow and wiped his face, mortified when he found purple tears on his hands.

He stood up suddenly, wiping his hands on his pants. He let his hair hang in his face, hoping Katie wouldn’t see the tears. “I gotta go.” 

Katie looked up at him with concern but didn’t press the issue. She stood up as well and put a gentle hand on his forearm. “Ok… toss them the rest of your duck food before you go?"

Titius sniffed, nodding jerkily. He took the bag of duck food and tossed the rest of the feed into the pond, the ducks crowding over the spray of oats and grapes.

Katie paused, analyzing the pattern of ducks as they crowded around the feed. The sign of the bouquet, a positive sign that can mean romance, luck or-

She smiled. 

Or a new loyal friend.

Titius scrubbed at his face, moving to head back through the woods.

“Don’t be a stranger ok?” Katie urged, watching the sign of the bouquet disperse as the ducks began to forage elsewhere.

Titius paused at the edge of the forest. Suddenly it was all too much for him to handle, the day and the previous night felt like it came from someone else’s memories. It was something that couldn’t have possibly have happened to something like him, like a nice and normal character in a movie being replaced with well… Whatever the fuck he was. None of it made any  _ fucking _ sense and it made him angry and on edge. How dare this tiny little slip of soft hornless creature  _ take care of him _ while he’s high, not die from simply being in his presence, and then take him to feed water birds. She looked at him like there was some sort of film between them, an illusion that showed her someone who was actually worthy of this kind of attention. It felt like lying to her, letting her continue her little delusion about whatever it was she thought he was. She should be afraid! She should be crying! She should be running far far away from him where she would be safe!

She had to learn what he was eventually.

Titius loomed over her, squaring his shoulders and glaring down at her. He grimaced, showing off his teeth as he leaned forward to bellow- “I AM A STRANGER!” the force of his shout echoing through the wooded area and across the pond.

Katie and the ducks paused for a moment, staring at the troll quietly.

And then after that one tense moment the ducks went back to quacking and Katie went back to her business as if nothing had happened.

Katie tossed another handful to the ducks. “I don’t think you are anymore...A stranger I mean...You cried into my dress and fed ducks with me afterall, I think that at least counts us as acquainted.”

Titius flushed, suddenly feeling extremely unscary and embarrassed. “I’m leaving.” he growled tersely.

“Ok.” Katie said pleasantly, looking over the water. “See you later.”

Titius sneered viciously. “I’m not coming back!”

Katie smiled to herself. She closed her eyes and tossed the rest of the duck food, listening to them scramble around at the edge of the water and-

Katie’s smile widened as she saw the pattern the ducks had made in the water. “Yes you will.”

Titius growled louder, stomping back into the woods. “NO I WON’T!”

Katie listened to him grumble and stomp through the woods and giggled to herself. In front of her the ducks had congregated into the rough shape of a basket, one thicker and squarer section closer to the rock and a thin line connecting either end in a semi-circle.

_ The sign of the basket-  _ Katie thought smugly _ -Means that there will be a new addition to the family. _  
  
  


 

Titius reached the fence, stepping over it and into the street of the cul de sac. “Alright you’re done.” He growled to himself, tugging on a still sweet smelling lock of hair. “You’re done ok? You fed some fucking ducks, you managed to not hurt anyone and now you’re done ok? You’re done and you’re going back to Alternia while you’re still ahead. Otherwise if you stay here you’ll just FUCK something up! You always do! So just don’t do it this time!”

He breathed heavily, grateful that nobody was around to hear his outburst.

“You’re done.” He whispered to himself. “You’re done and you’re  _ not _ going back.”

…

He went back.

  
  
  


Remado opened the newly installed door on the sorority house with the air of someone who was not amused. He leaned in the doorframe and gave Titius a critical look. “...I thought you were going back to Alternia.” He said almost accusingly.

Titius sighed. He already felt like an idiot standing on this fucking porch waiting for a human he fed  _ ducks _ with and he didn’t need Remado rubbing his face in it. “...What are you?” He crossed his arms defensively, trying to think of a snappy one-liner that could cover up his own nervousness. “The vacation police?” Perfect one-liner Titius you really got him with that one.

Remado gave him a look so caustic that not even the glitter eyeshadow Remado was wearing managed to soften it. “Pale sessions are done by appointment, Titius. Come back when you have the decency to call first.”

Titius flushed, opening his mouth to argue but-

“He has an appointment.”

Both trolls turned to see Katie standing at the foot of the stairs. She was dressed in a matching pair of Winnie the Pooh pajamas, her hair braided into two pigtails and a mug of something hot in his hands. “He has an appointment.” She repeated.

Titius’ eyes widened. “I do?”

Remado opened his mouth but quickly closed it. “No he doesn’t.”

Katie took a sip of her drink. “Check the appointment book.”

Remado scoffed “Katie he doesn’t-”

“Check. The. Appointment. Book.” Katie told him firmly.

Remado grumbled, throwing a drawer at and end table by the door. He took open a small and heavily glitter-encrusted book and-

“Titius 8pm” was written in Katie’s handwriting.

Remado leaned over to take a look at the clock on the kitchen wall. The cat-themed clock boggled it’s eyes at Remado, the little hands of the clock turning from 7:59 to 8:00pm and letting out a little recorded “Meow!” like it did every hour on the hour.

Remado turned to Katie “How-”

Katie took a sip of her drink, looking back to Titius who was still on the porch. “I’m watching cartoons on my room if you wanna join me.” She turned and trotted up the stairs, leaving Remado and Titius dumbfounded.

“Uh…” Titius rubbed the back of his head. “I’m just gonna… yanno…” He grimaced, edging carefully through the doorway past Remado.

Titius climbed the stairs, conscious of the sounds of other girls in the house, talking muffled behind doors. Katie was waiting for him at the top of the stairs. She smiled, walking down the hall and into one of the rooms on the right, a clear invitation to follow her.

Titius sighed and headed in after her.

The room was painted in a soft cream, strings of fairy lights cast soft light through the room. Her bed was tucked into a corner, covered in a messy array of mismatched quilts, a small couch faced away from the bed and towards a large television set. There were homemade braided rugs on the floors and a bookshelf that was overladen with books, knicknacks, odd bits of crystal and bone.

Katie pulled a blanket over her head like a cape and picked up another mug from her bedside table, pressing it into his hands. “Here,” She curled his fingers around it when he was too confused to do anything other than stare at her. “The universe didn’t tell me what kind of tea you liked so I picked chamomile because its troll-safe.”

She padded past him towards the couch, the blanket that wouldn’t have even have covered Titius’ legs dragging behind her comically. Titius stared into the cup. 

It was still warm - How?

Katie sat on floor in front of the couch, surrounded by throw pillows, the lights from the television sending blue and yellow lights across her face. She turned to look at Titius who was still hovering uncomfortably in the entry of her room, her heffalump mug in his hands and a confused look in his eyes. She caught his attention and patted the floor next to her, turning back to the TV.

Titius looked over at her, down at his cup, and back to her again.

Katie smiled as she heard Titius step gingerly towards her and the television. He sat down carefully, holding the mug in both hands as if he was worried he was going to break it, even the largest mug Katie could find was dwarfed in his hands. Every line in his body, from his stiff shoulders to his ramrod-straight back screamed nervousness.

“It’s called Iron Giant,” Katie informed him, popping a piece of popcorn into her mouth. “It’s one of my favorites.”

Titius just stared at the screen, his hands wrapped around the mug tighty.

Katie cocked her head. “Can I do your nails?”

 

 

 

As the night progressed eventually Titius ended up sprawled on the floor and sobbing into a throw pillow, one of his hands in Katie’s lap as she diligently worked on his nails.

Titius was crying so hard that it sounded like he was braying. “They just b-blew him up!” he sobbed. “He just wanted to h-help and they b-blew him up!”

Katie was currently working gingerly on his pinkie talon. Titius’ nails had been so torn and in disrepair she had to use a trick Rita had shown her where a bit of tissue was pressed over the split in the nail and soaked in clear nail polish. “He’s alright…” She leaned over to pat Titius’ shoulder “See the screws rolling to where he had crashed? He’s going to be ok.”

Titius sniffed, blurry and purple-rimmed eyes looking up at the screen. “They shouldn’ta blown him up though… It w-wasn’t his fault that he was big.”

“That’s true. Someone put a lot of effort into making him into something dangerous didn’t they and all the agent could see was what someone else had made him to be, even when he was trying to change it” Katie mused as she waved her nail file. “The important thing is that throughout the movie he took the time to work on himself, he messed up sometimes but he worked to better himself and now he’s, quite literally, rebuilding himself!”

Titius stared at the screen, the credits sending flashing light across his eyes. “I am not a gun…” He whispered.

Katie smiled. “Exactly!” 

Titius continued to stare at the screen, his eyes far away and thoughtful.

Katie looked down at her handiwork. “Now do you want them filed to a point or rounded?”

Titius thought for a moment, his eyes starting to laze closed. “...rounded.”

Katie smiled. “I can do that.”

Afterwards Titius laid on his back in front of Katie’s television, his thumb tracing over the smooth and rounded points of his talons. He felt washed out and warm, comfortable and relaxed despite himself.

He huffed out a deep breath. “I should go.” He told himself, the thought was logical on its surface though the little rational part in the back of his brain was frightened of just how much he didn’t want to.

Katie gathered her nail files, closing her eyes before tossing them onto a nearby throw pillow. She opened her eyes and smiled. “You’ll be back.”

“No I won’t” Titius argued quietly, not able to bring any heat to his words.

Katie just smiled, haloed by the colored light of the television. “Yes you will.”

 

 

 

…

He came back.

He came back over, and over and over again.

They watched movies, colored, talked and ate junk food. There was one ill-fated incident where Katie tried to teach him how to knit but he just got hopelessly tangled in the yarn and she had to cut him free. They had a routine now of feeding the ducks and the grocery store where Katie got the grapes eventually knew Titius just as well as they did Katie. The other girls in the house slowly became so accustomed to his presence that he was sometimes asked for help around the house like reaching high shelves or patching up holes he accidentally left in walls.

One time he was making his way to the house when he found Katie drunk out in the rain, umbrella in hand as she unsteadily followed a frog that was hopping down the sidewalk.

“I’m walking him home!” Katie explained, her hair wet and clinging to her face, each one of her steps squeaking in her rubber rain boots that were quickly collecting water. “I have an umbrella and he doesn’t! It’s only p-polite!”

Titius sighed and picked her up, taking her home. “He’s a frog he’s fine.”

He had taken her to her room, wrapped her in a towel and stayed with her to make sure she didn’t throw up and choke in her sleep. He had tried to stay awake but ended up falling asleep with her on the couch and him leaning against it, one hand on gentle on her back to continuously make sure that she was breathing.

Titius woke up before her, he let himself brush away a bit of her hair before taking his hand guiltily away and leaving before she could wake up. 

His face paint had washed off the night before in the rain and this time he didn’t bother to re-apply it, reacquainting himself to the contours of his own face in the hotel mirror that night.

He was a fraud, and if she knew what he was then she wouldn’t let him anywhere near him. He knew the other shoe was going to drop and when it did it would hurt, but he couldn’t stop himself from coming back every time.

It was like eating at an ice cream stand with a bulldozer poised at the front of it, like watching a blade swing lower and lower towards a happy rabbit in a field. Having something good but knowing with absolute certainty that it will end, and end badly.

He wondered how she would look at him once she knew what he really was, and what that  _ meant _ . Would she scream? Cry? He imagined her little face pinched with horror and disgust and felt his heart sink to his boots.

It wouldn’t last.

Titius found himself on her porch after losing yet another moral argument with himself which was, despite himself, beginning to turn into a routine for the both of them. He showed up on her porch and was let in to watch movies like he had been for weeks. It unnerved him that it wasn’t even Katie or Remado who opened the door this time, one of the other girls had opened the door dismissively, not even stopping to stare at him.

He watched her breeze past him and fling herself onto the couch with the other girls, all peacefully watching something on the television in the main room and-

He watched them all peacefully ignore him, like he wasn’t a threat and-

It felt like lying.

If they knew better they would be afraid of him.

He traced the now familiar path to Katie’s room

Katie was in her room like he knew she would be, wearing pajamas that he knew would be soft to the touch, drinking chamomile tea like he knew she would be, his own mug of tea on her side table where he knew it would be and-

“I rented some new movies!” Katie told him from where she sitting on the floor by the couch. “I have all of pixar this time. It’s a crime that you haven’t watched finding Nemo and-”

There was that feeling again, like Titius had been miscast in this role. Someone who was actually good and worthwhile should be with her watching movies and not him.

“Katie I…” He looked at her, tiny and small and blameless and he couldn’t stand lying to her anymore. “I can’t keep doing this.”

Katie looked at him, cocking her head. “Doing what?”

“THIS!” Titius waved his hands haphazardly, gesturing to everything in the room including Katie. “I CAN’T KEEP DOING THIS!!”

Katie put the DVDs down carefully on the couch and stepped carefully in front of Titius, looking up at him as he refused to meet her gaze. “What are you talking about?”

Titius shook his head, refusing to look at her. “I’m not…” He growled, taking a chunk of his hair and pulling. “I’m not whatever is is you think I am. I shouldn’t be here, I shouldn’t even be around you I-”

Katie put her hand on his arm gently “Titius-”

Titius ripped his hand away from her, taking a step back, something in his eyes looked trapped and hunted. “You can’t- I-” Titius hissed to himself, rubbing his scarred hands into his eye sockets. “You can’t be around me! If you knew what the church was- I-I was so stupid!”

Titius took a deep breath, willing the shake from his voice as he tried to explain. “I’m not… I’m not a good person Katie. In the church back then I thought I knew who I was, I thought I knew what was going on and I thought that I was doing the right thing and it just- it just-” He growled, unable to find the words.

Katie reached, slow and easy. “Titius I _ know _ -”

Titius growled “ You couldn’t POSSIBLY KNOW!” He tore at his hair. “YOU DON’T KNOW WHAT IT WAS LIKE IN THERE! IF YOU DID YOU MIGHT HAVE SOME FUCKING SENSE AND KICK ME OUT BECAUSE HOLY SHIT!” Titius was crying now despite himself “I DON’T BELONG HERE AND I DON’T DESERVE THIS!”

There was a long moment of silence as Titius refused to make eye contact and Katie stared at him from the other side of the room, her blanket around her shoulders and the light of the TV sending a blue glow over both of their features.

“When you’re inside of it, everything makes sense…” Katie murmured, a harsh rueful twist to her mouth. She stared him down, voice even even as tears began to bead in her eyes. “That’s probably the first thing that should clue people into the fact that it’s not real. Real life doesn’t make sense, real life doesn’t have everything in a nice little box all explained for you, clarity on the condition of being  _ good _ and doing what you’re  _ told _ .”

Titius flinched.

“And it’s so nice…” Katie whispered, putting the hand to her mouth. “It’s so… It feels so good to feel like you’re a part of something, everyone in there with you  _ knows _ you, is a part of the same thing…”

“And a part of you knows…” Katie winced. “Not everything can get put into a box, not everything can be so neatly put away, but you drown out that little voice in you because you want to be good, you want to keep the feeling of belonging, of knowing your place in something big and important and lovely, so you  _ drown it  _ and  _ you smile _ and  _ you do what you’re told _ .”

She closed her eyes resolutely. “And when you’re in the middle of it you can do just about anything they tell you to do with a smile on your face, be happy because they  _ told you _ to be happy. They explain all of the bad things away and put all of the logical parts of your brain into a tiny little box in the attic of your mind where you don’t have to listen to it.”

She shook her head. “But then you wake up. You’re pulled out of the dream kicking and screaming, and for a long time afterwards you pray to god every day that you could just go back but you can’t…. You can’t because the dream was torn apart brick by brick and all the logical parts of your brain are let out of the box and for the first time you can really SEE all of it, all of the awful things that were smoothed over and explained away while you were in it.”

Titius felt rooted to the spot, staring at her as she listed all of his doubts and pains. It felt like a mind reader scrubbing through his pan for weakness, reading it all out for everyone to hear but it wasn’t his doubts they were hers and they were the same and- “How do you-”

Katie sniffed and wiped a cheek with the back of her hand. “I told you that I understood it, I don’t think you believed me, but I do know what you went through, at least in a general sense.” She pulled her blanket tighter, wrapping around her like a cloak. “I’m going to the roof outside the bathroom window, you should be able to get there from the patio. Meet me there?”

It was funny in a way, Titius thought. She was so fucking small, so minuscule and blameless but she managed to wrap all of his hurt around her, like a black hole of his own personal misery. She was so fucking small but she managed to take up the whole universe right now and he couldn’t look away. A human ordering a Troll, much less a purpleblood around should have been a ridiculous, cullable offense, but he knew that she could ask him to do anything and he would. She could ask him to cull the empress and he wouldn’t even pause long enough to ask with what knife.

Titius nodded.

She smiled. “Thank you.”

Katie was just slipping through the window as Titius lifted himself onto the roof from the patio, a couple of shingles falling to the backyard below. Katie leaned against the side of the house and patted the spot next to her. He settled beside her and she leaned against his side.

Katie ran a finger against her bare feet peeking out from the edge of the blanket. “Have you ever heard of The Children of the Stars?”

Titius shook his head.

She rested her chin on her knees “Alternians don’t own the idea of a cult, which is the kind of thing the Church of the Mirthful Messiahs was, we get them on Earth too…”

Titius looked down at her, starting to piece it together. “And you were-”

Katie nodded. “I was born in one.”

Titius’s eyes widened.

She took a deep breath “The Children of the Stars was a pseudo-religious organization located in the deserts outside of Waco Texas founded by an ex car dealership owner named Kyle Emmsley.” Katie’s nose wrinkled as she recited the words hollowly, like reading the lines of a bad play. “I didn’t know any of that until I got out though... It sounds so ridiculous and sanitized when you say it like the police and the news did, but when I was there it wasn’t just a ‘pseudo-religious organization’ it was the only home I knew, and Kyle Emmsley wasn’t an ex- car dealership owner and a tax evader, he was the  _ Teacher  _ and the  _ Master,  _ the one person whose word was above all else.”

She sighed “People like to think that they’re so much smarter than the kind of people who get caught up in this kind of thing, but the truth is that even the most logical and level-headed of people can be worn down over time. My mother was a professor before she fell in with them.”

She frowned down at her bare feet, remembering  the way the sand would pelt the windows of their house in the compound at night. “The Master got everyone to believe that  _ Star People _ were coming to Earth to take all of the  _ faithful  _ away to a better life, but in the meantime the people  _ ‘living under the master’s guidance’ _ had to do what he said.”

“And they get you to accept little things at first…” Katie mused “The compound pooling their resources made sense, then my mother and others giving everything they earn to the Master made sense, then stealing small things from the non-believers was ok only if they weren’t going to be missed, then stealing big things was ok because they were non-believers and they were going to rot on Earth when the Star People came anyways.” 

Katie frowned “But then new kids started to show up... And I had thought it was annoying at the time actually, because they wouldn’t stop crying, but I was told that it was ok because they were being saved from their non-believer parents so they could be brought with us to the other world.”

Titius’ brows pinched. “Fuck.”

“Yeah…” Katie sniffed and wiped her tears with the edge of the blanket “Fuck is right. I wish I would have known what was really going on back then, done something to save them, but when you’re in it you can’t even begin to think that the people you rely on to give you clarity and purpose are  _ wrong _ , you just can’t.”

“You weren’t the one who did it though…” Titius whispered.

“I could’ve been.” Katie whispered back. “I would have done anything they would have asked me to, it’s just that I wasn’t old enough yet. Given enough time I could have been one of the ones the Master asked to go on _ errands _ .”

Katie wrapped her blanket tighter around herself and shivered “Only adults went on  _ errands _ but… I sometimes heard them talking about it, or they would even go to the kids to brag about what a good job they did and we would listen and we would cheer for them or laugh at some of the more... unsavory details... because they were  _ non-believers _ and they either deserved it, or it didn’t matter in the end what happened to them. It was like they were made an entirely different species than  _ us _ , a separate species that was _ lesser  _ and  _ replaceable, _ while we could do no wrong because we were disciples of the  _ Star People _ and we followed _ the Master _ , and _ the Master _ knew what was _ best _ …”

Titius wrapped his arms around his knees. “Like anyone who wasn’t a purple…”

“Yeah,” Katie leaned against his side “Like anyone who wasn’t a purple.” 

“How’d you get out?”

“I didn’t…” Katie frowned. “In a way the Alternians landing on Earth saved me...The Master finally had his Star People, but none of them were coming to claim the people in the compound like he said they would. They grew more restless and he grew more violent to control them and eventually he caught the eye of the FBI...”

“That’s the human police, right?”

“A type of them...yeah…” Katie shrugged. “I was twelve years old, and it had been my wedding day…”

Titius’ ears flicked forward with alarm, bringing up his fingers to count along them. “But if a year is half a sweep then-”

Katie laughed. “I know, trust me, I know. But back then it was one of those things I had accepted as good and just because  _ the Master _ was the one who ordered it, it was supposed to be an honor to marry him and... I was actually excited.”

Titius swore under his breath. “That’s so fucked up.”

Katie nodded “I remember gunshots and my new husband pushing me to the floor and telling me ‘Damn girl! stay hidden from the non-believers!’ and then I remember a suited man pulling me out from under the bed, as I kicked and screamed, and he told me that it was ok that I had been  _ rescued,  _ but I had no idea what he was talking about.”

Katie threw up her hands “And then I learned that there was a world outside of the compound, and that I lived in the United States, and that the government had no idea who I was because my mother didn’t give birth in a hospital so I had no social security number or anything. I learned that spiritual texts, numerology, tea reading and crystals were not a part of the standard curriculum for US schools and so I had  _ nothing _ when they tried to put me in a regular elementary school! I used to know everyone in the compound but whenever I tried to talk to people they would look at me like I was insane, so after a while I got too nervous to talk to them anymore.”

Katie put a hand to her eyes and laughed, that sort of manic laughter one does when they’re trying not to cry. “I didn’t even have a real name! One of the FBI agents chose Katie out of a book!”

Titius put a cautious arm around her, giving her time to pull away if she wanted to but Katie only snuggled into his side. “I’m feeling fucking bummed out that you little things have to deal with that bullshit too…” Titius murmured, rubbing his hand along her side “Alternians are up and thinking you guys are supposed to be gentler than us.”

“I think the point is that we’re all just… people…” Katie said the last word with a bitter note of resignation. “We can all be good in the right situations and bad in the wrong ones.”

Titius’ lips curled into a small shaky smile. “You really do get it… don’t you?”

Katie looked up at him, taking two of his massive fingers in her hands and curling his arm tighter around herself. “Yeah… I really do.”

Purple tears welled up in Titius’s eyes as he smiled and Katie offered him the edge of the blanket. He hugged her instead, crying into the soft Winnie the Pooh patterned shoulder of her pajamas.

“Why the fuck are you so nice?” Titius murmured, muffled from where his face was pressed to her pajamas.

“I think the universe gives us what we need to heal, we just have to know what we’re looking for and how to spot it…” Katie laughed as she tried to unbury herself from his mountain of shaggy hair. She combed fondly through his hair and oh-

Her little pink butterfly clip was holding a braid together, something he had obviously put there thinking only he would ever know and-

The sign of the  _ butterfly _ means  _ success _ and  _ happiness _ .

She smiled and sniffed, pressing her face against his shoulder. “After they got parole they all went back to the camp to wait for the Master’s return, to wait for the Star People, and I can’t get them out, can’t get m-my mom or any of them out but….” She hugged him tighter “I knew I could help you… so…. Thank you for letting me, Titius.”

The bathroom door slammed open and Titius and Katie yelped in shock, pulling apart.

“Hey!” A green-eyed girl with long brown hair waved from the window. “Imma close the window so you don’t have to listen to me pee in here.”

Katie stared back at her in shock, cheeks still wet with tears. “.... Just remember to open it again when you’re done, Maddie.”

The other girl gave a quick thumbs up and slammed the window closed again.

There was an awkward moment on the roof as Titius and Katie shared a look-

Before the both of them erupted into laughter.

The night was pleasantly cool, the wind tugging on Katie’s blanket and Titius’s hair as the two ex-cult members laughed on the roof of a Texas University sorority house. Two rejects from two planets laughed out at the odd illogical universe that had the capacity to be so cruel, but also knew love and healing and forgiveness. The moon shined down at them in ribbons of silvery light and something cold and sickly melted away from both of their hearts.

Titius laughed and there were tear-tracks running down his cheeks even as he smiled. The world was just so fucking ridiculous.

“Do you think I can ever make up for it?” He asked.

“I don’t know.” Katie answered truthfully. “I don’t know if I can either…” She took his hand and squeezed it, her tiny hand only able to reach around his first two fingers. “Nobody gets what they deserve though, if that was the case then neither of us would have been there to begin with… We’re the ones here now though, for better or for worse, and we can make it as less shitty as we can for others at least.”

Titius nodded and swallowed, his shoulders squaring. A man with a job to do. “Think we can get them back?”

“Who?”

“Your people… my people… “ Titius shrugged, something tired but determined in the glint of his eyes “All of em…”

“I don’t know…” Katie’s hair was turned silver by the moonlight, the wind pulling strands of it into her face as she stared up at him. “We can try though…”

On the other side of the bathroom window the light was turned off and the door closed as Madeline went back to bed.

Titius and Katie gave each other a look.

“Bitch forgot to open the bathroom window.” Titius grumbled and Katie snickered into her blanket.

“Come on…” Titius clambered to the edge and lowered himself down. “I’ll give you a lift.”

Katie crawled to the edge of the roof, looking down at Titius as he stood in the ground, his claws still holding on to the edge.

“And uh…” Tiitus’ ears flicked back as he looked up at her. “...Does that mean we’re… actual friends?”

“Yeah.” Katie leaned down to give him a peck on his forehead “We’re actual friends.”

He purred, offering her a hand and she accepted, letting him lift her off the roof and into his arms. She settled onto his shoulder like a delicate little parrot and smiled at him.

“Partners?” He asked.

She smiled and nodded “Yeah… partners!”  
  
  


 

Eventually Titius did go back to Alternia, but it wasn’t going home anymore. This time he went with a plan in his mind, hope in his heart and a little pink butterfly clip hidden in his hair. Katie told him how to best approach the topic to the others and he knew he couldn’t be the only one who felt like he did.  
  
  


 

Six months later Titius was in his hive, packing for what he hoped to be his final trip off Alternia. He was having trouble figuring out what he actually cared enough to take with him when he heard the door to his respiteblock open.

Kamera was there, lanky and feral-thin, his eyes bright and his hair messy around his shoulders. “Sup dude.”

“Kam!” Titius smiled and turned to his friend. “You haven’t been answering my texts I was going to go see you before we left!”

Kamera gave him a sidelong look. “I didn’t want there to be a trail if what I think if happening is going down… You’ve been gathering a lot of ex clowns these last couple of months…” Kamera stalked casually into the room. “Couple clowns here… couple clowns there… almost enough to start a faction…”

Titius grinned. “Yeah! The response so far has been good!”

Kamera’s smile widened into a sharp-toothed grin. “Taking all of em to Earth, huh…”

Titius nodded, a deep thrumming in his chest as he burst with pride. “Yeah I have a place set out for us and everything!”

Kamera snickered. “Fuck dude… I didn’t think you had it in ya!”

Titius smiled. “Come with us!”

Kamera laughed, grin splitting his face with joy. “Yes! Yes FUCK! Yes I fucking WILL come with!”

Titius wrapped an arm around his shoulders and hugged him. “We’re happy to have you Kam!”

Kamera leaned into the touch, purring. He looked up at Titius and-

“So it’s really happening?” He looked up at Titius with such hope in his eyes. “We’re really starting up the church again?”

Titius stiffened. “What?”

“FINALLY!” Kamera threw his head back. “That fucking BITCH of a new empress won’t be able to touch us! And we can FINALLY get back to what we were hatched to do, the way the Messiahs always intended!”

Titius pulled back. “Kam-”

“Fuck was it as satisfying tearing apart one of those lil’ alien shits as it was a regular troll? Tell me it was Titius you have no idea how much I’ve-”

“KAM!” Titius put a hand on either of the troll’s shoulders, staring down at him in disbelief. “...We’re not starting another faction! Nobody is starting up another faction ever again that’s the whole point!”

Kamera’s brows furrowed “...what?”

Titius brushed Kamera’s messy bangs out of his face. “You don’t have to pretend anymore! We’re not in the church so you don’t have to pretend!”

Kamera stared up at him. “....pretend…”

Titius shook him gently “Pretending you’re-” He motioned vaguely around them “Pretending- Pretending to be one of their good little soldiers! Pretending you’re fine with it so you don’t hid a cudgel to the back of the head! We can get out this time! REALLY get out! From the conditioning and everything! For good!”

“The only one here  _ pretending _ -” Kamera shrugged off Titius’ hands and gave him a dirty look “- Is YOU.”

Titius stared down at him, a furrow in his brow. “I don’t understand-”

“Of COURSE you don’t!” Kamera threw up his hands angrily. “You were always so FUCKING THICK!” Kamera sent Titius a scathing look. “You fucking heretic-”

Titius winced.

Kamera growled, leaning towards him “Throwing away our heritage, our blood, and for what? FOR FUCKING WHAT?”

Titius tried to put a hand on his shoulder “Kam please-”

“No!” Kamera yanked his hand off of him. There were tears in Kamera’s eyes now, streaking through the makeup as he sneered. “We finally have a chance to get away from the empress, start up again and you’re- you’re-”

“We were in a cult, Kam…” Titius stepped towards him, the other troll stepping back. “They have them on Earth too. They just lie to people to get them to do what they want. Katie said-”

“Katie said-” Kamera parroted back mockingly “Fucking listen to yourself! You’re letting a  _ human _ think for you now?”

Titius threw up his hands “It was just like what we went through! Bunch of humans isolated in the desert outside Waco Texas, except for them it wasn’t Mirthful Messiahs it was Star People, and instead of a Grand Highblood it was The Master and-”

“I don’t want to hear about your little whore’s ALIEN HERESIES!” Kamera screamed back. He shook his head, purple tears dripping to the floor. He put a hand to his chest “You were supposed to be on MY SIDE! You made a promise REMEMBER? We were SUPPOSED to watch each other’s backs!”

Titius frowned down at him. “Kam… you’re confused.”

“I am NOT-” Kamera sneered, his upper lip pulling into a grimace. “-THE ONE HERE THAT IS CONFUSED!” He was breathing heavily, his pupils in harsh slits as he stared Titius down. “The Mirthful Messiahs guide my hand-”

“Kam.” Titius hissed, rubbing a hand across his eyes, tired and frustrated.

“My heart knows no doubt-” Kamera breathed “-I am the sacred hunter, striking to forestall the darkness and-”

“KAM.” 

“-Like a flower watered there can only be life where blood is spilled-”

“KAM!” Titius clamped his hands on either of Kamera’s shoulders. “ENOUGH!”

Kamera glared up at him. “The field of my faith is watered with the blood of HERETICS-” one of his clawed hands slashed upwards at Titius, a splatter of purple blood across Kamera’s face. He growled, reached to slash again and-

Titius held both of his hands in his, forcing him still. Kamera struggled against his hold but he held firm. There were four jagged slashes across Titius’ chest now, bleeding a sluggish purple that he hardly seemed to notice, as Titius held the both of them together, hand in hand like the beginning of some demented bleeding waltz. Titius’ eyes were soft and sad as he stared down at the other troll. “Kam… enough…”

“Kill me.” Kamera stared up at him, going loose against the hold. “Kill me Titius, please. Kill me, kill me kill me-”

Titius stared down at him, shaking his head slowly. “No.”

He dropped Kamera to the ground, the smaller troll sobbing into his hands. He picked up his suitcase and walked to the door.

Kamera had his arms around himself, staring back at Titius. “No! You promised!”

“Goodbye Kamera.” Titius whispered.

“HERETIC! BLOOD TRAITOR!” Kamera screamed back at him, tears and blood on his face. “YOU PROMISED!”

Titius closed the door-

And Kamera curled in on himself to weep.  
  
  


 

After Katie’s graduation she and Titius founded a center to help de-radicalize cults from both planets. It was hard and frustrating work, but it was more than worthwhile- it was necessary. 

The universe is such an odd and illogical place, it can be cruel and unkind but it also has an unreasonable amount of hope. People can change, people can grow, they can look inside themselves and confront what they find there. To live even from moment to moment, is to be in a state of flux, each second the person you were before dying and being reborn. The cruel may find kindness, the graceless may find grace. 

None of us get what we deserve, but the good thing about being broken is that once you’ve gathered up all of your pieces you can make yourself into something new, maybe something even better when you’re done with it.  
  
  
  
  
  
  


 

 

 

 

 

In a desert complex outside of Waco Texas, barefooted villagers tended to a meager garden. Rough spun dresses and tunics flashed bright in the darkness. The stars above them so far away from the city seemed to stretch above them in an endless kaleidoscope. 

A wind chime made from little metal stars began to move with the breeze, the sound light and discordant. A white woman with grey dreadlocks raised her head at the sound. The villagers turned to her, their eyes wide as they began to whisper.

She took a handful of seeds in her hands, closing her eyes as she threw them haphazardly to the ground.

“The bridge and…” She cocked her head, her eyes wide and owlish behind her cracked glasses “...the broom… Someone is coming…. And there will be changes…”

A hooded figure approached the complex from the desert, taller than any human, the wind pulling the cloth around them into billowing shapes. They stopped at the edge of the campfire, pulling down their hood and-

Kamera smiled at the troupe of humans. “Children of the stars….” He breathed, his eyes hooding and his smile widening. More figures came from the desert, standing silently at the edge of light surrounding the bonfire, the points of their horns visible through the fabric. “The Star people have come for you…”

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys! I hope you liked "Tea Leaves!" Comment if you enjoyed!!! I love hearing from you guys and after struggling with this chapter for so long I'm actually really happy with how it turned out!
> 
> Drawings are by CyanideOreos on tumblr! give them a follow!

**Author's Note:**

> Hey guys! Please comment if you enjoyed!


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